Reach Behind
by PossumSoul
Summary: (Post 47 Seconds) She knows she made a mistake, one that she was hoping would fix itself over time. But her first case comes back to haunt her and she's up against too much to go it alone. She needs him back. {COMPLETE W/ EPILOGUE}
1. Chapter 1

"All rise!"

The bailiff's voice breaks up the jumbled chorus of voices debating in her mind. She almost forgets to rise from the bench in the back until she sees the news reporter next to her stand up. And once she's on her feet, feeling unsteady and unbalanced in her heels, she tries her best to remain as stoic and strong as possible. Her eyes are forcing themselves not to look in the direction of the man standing up from the front of the courtroom, clad in a prison jumpsuit. She's having to force herself not to do more things than she is having to force herself to do things, having to break herself of old habits that only seem normal when he's around.

It's been like that for almost two weeks now. Since last she heard from him.

The judge, standing no taller than five foot seven, an elderly black woman, sits down in the podium and carries with her an air of impatience and malcontents toward proper courtroom civility. "Be seated." She sighs loudly as she's hanging her square-rimmed reading glasses from her nose.

Beckett doesn't want to sit down now. Being seated would give her muscles the opportunity to relax. All that would do is make them jumpy, jittery, and nervous. But she complies, putting herself in harmony with the cub reporter next to her who's all too eager to take notes. Hopefully, she can dodge him before he asks who she is or before he catches sight of her badge, clipped to the waistband of her slacks.

She has too much to worry about without this happening. He's been trying to get the case retried for years now. And this time, he brought his wife, along with their nine-year-old son; a ploy for sympathy plotted by their new lawyer. She can just hear him now, telling the judge how 'an innocent man has only known his son through plate glass'. She would roll her eyes if she had the emotional energy to muster up being sarcastic. It's still too cluttered with dread, anxiousness, and a hint of shame thinking she was wrong.

"Mr. Williams," The judge sighs again heavily and looks at the prisoner over the rim off her glasses, "this is the third time you've appealed for a retrial. Am I to believe that new evidence has come to light that I don't know about?"

"Your Honor," The lawyer quickly stands, buttoning the middle button of his suit jacket. And when he stands, quick and confident like it's an accusation that everything she's done since she closed this case and made this arrest has been a mistake, like he's questioning every action she's taken up to this point as a cop with the simple acts of standing up. "My client was convicted on no other grounds other than he was in the wrong place at the wrong time."

Beckett clenches her jaw and glares at the back of the lawyer's head as he paces through the courtroom toward the judge.

"The investigation was mishandled on nearly every level! The-"

" _Evidence!"_ The judge shouts, "Mr. Vernon."

The lawyer stops in his tracks, lifts his finger to the judge and spins around. His glaring eyes fall directly upon her, shooting her a familiar warning from the front of the courtroom to the back, where she sits, hiding behind the very few people that decided to show up. No one that's on her side. She never told anybody. She kept it to herself, all this time, until it's built to this, coming up against the odds alone. Not even her partner here at her side.

The lawyer picks up a file from the table and marches up to the podium, handing them to the judge before continuing. "My client's only crime was fitting the vague profile of a violent kidnapper and murderer, put together by a hot-headed rookie detective with a chip on her shoulder, your honor."

If she felt like a stronger person, she'd be angry. If she had someone by her side, if she hadn't let it get to this, she would get angry and have the confidence to say he's wrong. But she's alone... and all she feels is the need to cry. Because for all she knows, he could be right.

"The investigation was rushed and thrown together," she knows she's getting thrown into the spotlight by the way the lawyer turns and throws his hand in her direction, "by Detective Kate Beckett, who set her sights on an innocent man and put him away for crimes he didn't commit and _because_ of that, because of the NYPD's negligence, letting a rookie detective who'd never even handled a case before in her career..."

When the lawyer turns back around she feels her blood clench against the walls of her veins and a cold sweat rush against her skin.

"Another couple has been murdered."

The courtroom erupts in a violent uproar with camera shutters clicking, eyes whipping in her direction, the reporter next to her already buzzing in her ear, and voices loudly muttering in disbelief and shock.

" _Order! Order!"_ The judge bangs her gavel five times until the court settles. And once the silence falls over them, Beckett's bones let out a violent shiver. If he were here, she'd be grabbing his hand and giving it a hard squeeze. If they were alone, she'd be hugging his chest as tight as she could and hiding herself in the cove of his arms and the warmth of his skin.

It's all her fault. She can't even begin to wrap her already muddled mind around how much of this she'll have to go up against. Alone.

"As you can see, your honor," the lawyer begins again, "a couple was found three days ago in upstate New York, having been tortured and killed, matching the exact MO my client was falsely accused of using ten years ago."

The judge flips over one of the papers in the file, then looks back up to the lawyer, and Beckett knows she's genuinely curious. "And the grounds of the retrial are?" She asks in a much softer, less angry tone.

"On the grounds that there were details used in this killing that match exactly the details in the original case. And those details were never made public, your honor. On those grounds, I would like to move for a retrial."

The judge sighs and when her hand moves to grab the gavel, Beckett knows. A sealing of her fate as it lands hard against the podium. She's bursting her legs with energy as the judge is still giving orders for the retrial. She's pushing open the doors to the courtroom before the reporter can ask her any questions and before she is put up against more than she can handle. She can hear the chatter in the courtroom as she rushes on very unsure footing down the marble hall and down out into the humid late-spring air of the city.

She chokes back her burning eyes until she's safely behind the wheel of her car, parked in a back corner of the parking structure of the building. Even here, she makes them small, silent pairs of screaming pain. As she reaches for her phone, she consciously thinks that the only thing she wants right now, what she'd kill for, is just to be able to break down, just for once. She wants to be able to be in someone's arms and just sob, for as long as it takes to put herself back together and not be judged any lesser for it.

He'd know.

He'd know that she just needed to let it out so she could be strong again. He'd tell her that she's just as strong as she always was, even as she wipes her tears on one of his silk button-up dress shirts. He'd know that it was just the pain that she bottles up venting out, that it was nothing he did or didn't do, and that all he needed to do was put his arms around her and hold her so she doesn't hit the floor.

But she's not allowed any of that. She's not allowed to break down, not allowed to waver or flinch. She's not even allowed to admit she makes mistakes. It's hard for anyone, but she's just not allowed to admit that she makes mistakes, that she's still human. She has to be something stronger than human to stay as stoic as she has been. And it's only in the darkest of times in her life, like now, when she has no choice but to admit it's nothing more than bravado, and that the only way to make any sort of progress in anything is to admit that she made a mistake.

And staring at his caller ID photo, his soft smirk and gleaming, bright blue eyes, his soft and stylish hair and his lips, lips that she's been dwelling on kissing again a lot lately... she has to admit it. She made a terrible mistake. One that she's been dreading having to face down. But now, she doesn't have a choice.

It wasn't all that hard to figure out what drove him away. And when she pieced it together, she took the easy way out and waited for the situation to fix itself. But in the back of her mind, she knew when she took that road that it wouldn't. The still warm cup of coffee sitting on the very edge of her desk with her partner nowhere in sight. The subtle anger and tension in his voice as they pushed the truth out of Leann West and the eventual realization that he was talking about someone else when he lectured her about 'sinning by silence'.

They were so close to getting there. Close enough to where she could just feel the softness of his lips on her again.

It was a mistake she was hoping would take itself back as they grew closer. But now... she hasn't even spoken or heard from him in two weeks.

Her thumb hesitantly hovers over the call icon on her phone, knowing he won't answer, knowing he'd see her calling and tighten his brow, scoff and shove his phone away in anger that she's even making the attempt. She can't text him, it'd be pointless. He'd see her name on the screen and not even bother to read it. What would she say to him anyway? The only thing she can think to say is that she needs help.

Her car's engine is firing up and echoing off the concrete walls before the better of her senses comes back and asks her what it is she's doing. And after suffering through an hour's worth of traffic as she struggles to get through to SoHo, she parks outside his loft and looks up to his windows. She can just imagine what he's doing, if he's writing Nikki Heat with his feet propped up on the edge of his desk, using her voice and mannerisms to create a character. There's even been times this year when she'd indulge herself and imagine herself lazily slumping out of his bedroom in nothing but the shirt she tore off him the previous night, finding him leaned back in his office chair and coming up behind him, putting her arms around his neck and feathering kisses along his ear.

Her heart can still put her up there even now. And if she's still daydreaming about them, what they could be like, it's an indication that if she's going to get passed this mistake, she's going to have to start admitting that she made one.

And as she makes her way to the second floor and knocks on the door at the end of the hall, it's the first time that she's worried about this door being slammed in her face. But she can't do this on her own, she needs someone who believes in her the way he does. And the only way she knows she can get through this is with him... with Castle.

* * *

 _A/N: Seeing where this prompt takes me. Been in my head a while. Let me know what you think. :)_


	2. Chapter 2

How can he still be tired? He went to bed before Alexis last night. Alexis has been disciplined about going to bed by ten ever since preteens. Maybe it's just from the gym this morning, venting out his despair and rage through breaking apart his muscles.

He wants to go back to bed, but he knows himself too much. He'll just wake up more tired and more angry with himself for having gone to bed and putting himself in the situation in the first place, starting the whole cycle over again. Scrubbing his face with his hands, as if the pressure would scratch away the laziness in his eyes, he throws himself back into his office chair, half annoyed and half amused by the squeak in the hinge. He pushes one hand through his sweat-stained, uncombed mess of hair and drags his fingernails through his two-week-old layer of darkened scruff.

It started as a concerted effort to grow a beard, then just morphed into not caring how presentable he was.

After the motions are done, he reaches forward and grabs his glass, sitting still half full next to his laptop and tosses the scotch down his throat. Sucking his teeth loudly, letting the burn swirl around against his teeth and gums, he swallows and puts his elbows down on the desk and leans his face down on a pair of entwined fingers. He's phasing out again, letting the already feeble shackles in his mind fall.

A part of him wants her to call. Just so he can see what it feels like to slam the proverbial door in someone else's face for once. He's always been the one to go back, to go crawling on his belly like a dog, begging for forgiveness just for a pat on the head and a 'good boy'. With Kyra, with Meredith, with Gina, and most of all with Beckett. Well, he's not doing it anymore. Two weeks and counting since the biggest wake-up call of his life. He's been offering affection and attention to women who look the other way and don't appreciate him his entire life.

He's not doing it anymore. He's done.

He's not putting himself through hell just to wind up alone and broken-hearted like he is now. Because he realizes now, after all this time, that maybe his mother was wrong, maybe he was wrong. Maybe it is better to be with someone you don't love as much as long as it means not ending up getting your heart broken. Maybe it is better in the long run to avoid all the pain and cynicism having a hopeless crush on someone brings. Because he doesn't want to feel this angry and cynical. He doesn't want to have to play a game of 4D chess just to get someone to crack a smile.

Just a few weeks ago, he would have told himself that it's worth it, that she was worth it as long as he could fool himself into believing that she was starting to feel the same way, or at least willing to get on the path needed to. Or maybe that she at least cared about him as a man, or a person, a partner, as he did her. But watching the truth spill out, the reality of the situation and the true nature of what their partnership is... was... it was a splash of cold water to sober him up to what she really thinks of them.

Well, he's not going to play into it again. After forty years, it's high time he grew himself a spine.

In a fit of self-determination and purpose, he throws himself to his feet, kicking his squeaky office chair back against the chest of drawers behind him, grabbing up the empty glass along the way. It's nearly eleven o'clock and he's still in his gym sweats. He doesn't need her to give him a purpose to get dressed in the morning. He quickly moves around his desk, setting his glass down next to the open decanter and marches into his bedroom, throwing off his shirt and tossing it against the wall as if going into battle.

The hot running water feels nice, the noise shutting up a lot of the background voices in his head. But after just a few minutes, he decides to give himself another wake-up call and reaches over to the knob, cranking it all the way to the right. He stands there under the water, bracing his muscles and his bones against the water that quickly turns ice cold. It makes him feel tough, rugged, like taking the first step into turning over that new leaf he promised himself. He pushes through it for another eight minutes until he's scratching his nails into his scalp after shampooing and reaching over with the other hand to shut the water off. When it stops, he flexes his arms and groans out loud.

" _Rhugh..."_ He pumps his muscles as the water drips from the shower head. He huffs a few breaths, a bull challenging a red flag, and rips open the curtain. He does a meager job of toweling off, and it isn't too long before he's pulling on a pair of dark denim jeans, whipping the damp towel over his shoulder. He rolls his neck, feeling his joints crack with stiffness, and as he's bringing his hand up, he feels his scruff, kept out of self-punishment.

He marches back into the bathroom and grabs his straight razor from the drawer and turning on the sink with two hands in a quick motion. He lathers up the shaving cream and is dragging the razor across his face, the shave going as close as he can make it. And after the last bit of his face is done and his jaw is toweled off, he looks at his reflection in the mirror.

He's not bad looking. Doesn't look his age too much. He's a decent guy, not perfect, but decent. He deserves someone who can see that, at least. After a sigh, he turns and makes his way back into his office, a beeline made to the decanter and refilling his glass. Once filled, he lifts his glass, but his eyes fall on his phone, sitting motionless and lifeless next to his laptop. A small test couldn't hurt. Testing the waters to see how it makes him feel.

He reaches for it and slides the screen unlocked, and with a few quick, fearfully anxious moments, he taps his thumb against Beckett's picture.

And it's a test failed.

Still, even now, knowing full well what hell she's put him through, knowing she heard him, knowing she knew all this time how he felt and did nothing, knowing that she was able to look him in the eye every... single... day... and pretend like nothing had ever happened, throwing his confession of love back in his face day after day, knowing she didn't even care enough about him to tell him that she just didn't feel the same way... even knowing all that... looking at her now.

"Why do I still love you?"

He indulges his weakness for her and pets the screen with the pad of his thumb, stroking what would be her cheek.

 _This is just pathetic, Rick,_ he thinks to himself and rolls his eyes, locking his phone and letting it fall with a clumsy clatter back down to the surface of his desk as he downs half the glass of scotch. He lets out a deep sigh once the alcohol's burn fades and slides his palm down his bare stomach. If just looking at her picture is enough to make him question this new found confidence in himself, he still has a lot of work to do. And realizing this, he is briefly filled with a sense of hopelessness, a feeling of despair that he's just a slave to this.

Shaking his head in self-deprecation, he lifts the glass to the edge of his lips but is stopped, the sound of a knock on his door echoing through the silence of the empty loft.

"Oh, what is it now?" He asks and sets the glass down to the edge of his desk and pads quickly through the living room and to the door, unlatching the deadbolt and whipping open the door. And when he sees her, it all falls.

And for Beckett, everything she had prepared in her head, every word and inflection she had rehearsed in her head the past few moments waiting for the courage to summon itself to knock and the few seconds waiting for him to answer, it's all blank at the sight of him. A brand new sight of him she hasn't even had the privilege to glimpse in her dreams yet. Her partner, standing in front of her freshly showered, a pair of jeans hanging off his hips, a white towel slung over his shoulder and his bare chest and softly defined muscles, outlining with such hidden strength that it just makes him that much more attractive.

"Beckett?" He asks, not surprised his voice lifted more than he told it to. She just looks so... holdable. Like her body would fit perfectly in his arms. Even now, in her brown suit jacket, beige top, and dark slacks, with her hair falling down in those perfect curls.

Her head doesn't tilt as she meets his eyes, her lips tucked into a small dot as she wrings her hand against her thumb. "Hey, Castle." She says back, her voice sounding small even to herself.

Her eyes look away, but she can still see his arm fall off the edge of the door and swing back down to his side. "Uh..." he begins, and he knows he needs to be as emotionless as possible if he's going to get through this. They're over, he's done, that's it. "What are you doing here?" He asks her, making it drip with feigned casualness.

But his tone, she knows is faked. Two weeks and he still sounds as if he's angrier than he was when he heard what she said that day. And she can't just outright tell him what she needs without the door getting slammed in her face. She can't help her fluttering heart though, her knotted stomach, and very dry throat yet watering mouth that this new sight of Castle is causing her. She doesn't want to help it, she feels it's better to accept it as a punishment for what she did, but she doesn't have to accept it weakly.

She puts her head back and looks him in the eye... those deep baby blue eyes, and starts. "Mind if I come in?" She motions into the loft with her clasped hands.

His mouth closes and he shakes his head. Why does he still love her? Does she have it out for him, is that it? She just lives to watch him suffer or something, because she knows full well what he'll say. "Sure," He agrees and steps aside. He forces his eyes to the hardwood as she passes in front of him into the loft and looks away from her as he closes the door behind her. Sure, he's forced to be a gentleman, but that doesn't mean he has to be good company. "Something I can do for you, Detective?"

His voice is just stinging with impatience as she paces to a stop near the stairs. She turns to answer him, agreeing to his inhospitality because of what she did, but just sees his back facing her and is forced to watch him march back toward his office. "I-I..." She stutters to answer him, briefly caught up in watching the soft edge of his shoulder blades, "I just haven't seen you in a while."

He doesn't answer her as he comes to a stop in front of his desk.

She's following him slowly until she's stopping in the doorway. And it isn't until she sees him with his back turned and a half-full glass of whiskey in hand that a terrible, heart-breaking realization hits her. "A-am I uh..." she looks into his bedroom to his unmade bed, "interrupting anything?"

Castle just downs the rest of the alcohol and sets the glass back down with a thud. "Nope," he says in a strained voice. "Why?" He fires back and looks over his shoulder, seeing her in the doorway with one hand on the jam, leaned in with a worried crease in her brow.

She answers his question with an obvious pout of her lips, a shake of her head, and a lift of her hand toward him, gesturing toward his appearance. He looks down to himself unawares, realizing that he's half-naked, but doesn't respond with any care for modesty. "Right..." he sighs to himself and spins on a heel toward his bedroom. "Sorry about that." He mutters and disappears, whipping the towel off his shoulder, snapping it loudly in the air as he turns out of sight.

Left alone in his space, she gives herself a chance to reflect on it. It's not even noon and he's already drinking, by the sight of the half-empty decanter left with the lid off, has been for a while. His laptop is closed and shows no sign of having been used to write, he's not even dressed and didn't even care to put a shirt on before snapping the door open. She can see the drain of emotion in his face as he looked at her and the way he threw down the drink, like he was punishing himself. He didn't even say hello when he saw her again, just asked what she was doing here, like he wanted to ask why she bothered to show her face at all. And seeing all this, makes it all hit home.

She didn't just hurt him.

She broke his heart.

Beckett is snapped out of her tailspin by the sound of him coming out of his bedroom, clad in a dark blue dress shirt, button the cuffs awkwardly as he carries a pair of shoes under one arm. "Apologize for the indecency." He said without looking at her and sitting down in his office chair. "You caught me coming out of the shower."

She chuckles halfheartedly and looks down to the floor, "Yeah, I kind of figured at first."

There's a thick and all too awkward pause between them as she waits for him to put his shoes on. And once he's done, he doesn't stand to have an actual conversation with her, just pulls himself up to his laptop and opens it. "So, did you need something?"

That breaks her heart.

They haven't seen each other in over two weeks and he doesn't even ask her how she's been? Are they even friends anymore? "I can't just come and see you?"

He sends her a glare over the top of his laptop. _No,_ he bitterly spits inside his head.

"I didn't think I needed a reason to see my partner."

 _Time for a little honesty,_ "Well, I've been a little busy." He snarks.

She could leave it there. He's clearly too upset with her to talk on a level field. And the more his words sting her, the more she feels his lashing out at her is because of a broken heart that she broke in the first place, the more she feels she just doesn't have the courage it would take to make it through this. If turning and running out the door didn't mean running out into a world that seems out to get her, she'd be making for it right now.

"So, if you were just stopping by, I do have a lot to catch up on."

She pushes out a sigh and grabs the glass sitting in front of her and lifts it up. "I guess that's why you needed the morning pick-me-up?"

His eyes go shamefully between her and the glass in her hand. "Let's just say I had a rough night." He says, hoping to end this conversation and stands up, going to the other side of the room and to the bookshelf, pulling out a random book that he makes seem he was actually going for and didn't pick at random to make it look like he's really in the middle of something important. He pats the random hardcover against his hand and looks back over to her, seeing her eyes had followed him. "So, did you want something or is this part of the NYPD's new house call policy?"

 _God, he's never been this spiteful and angry with me before. Does he even love me still? Was it that bad?_ "Actually, uh... th..." She can't even say it. She can't even ask her own partner for his help. "I was hoping that you'd look into something for me."

He's setting the book down next to his laptop and is stepping back around his desk to go back, giving her only a second of eye contact. "I'm kinda busy, Beckett."

And with that, his shutting her down, his lashing out at her and his passive aggressiveness, she snaps.

"So, if you don't mind, I-"

"Castle, I _know_ you heard me say I remember my shooting _,_ I know you know that I heard what you said that day, but _I need your_ _help_!" She pleads loudly.

Castle just paces to a stop, turned away from her with one hand hanging from one of the shelves and cranes his neck. He lets out a hard sigh and turns back around, looking at her with an expression that's etched with impatience and anger. Her raw emotion is showing clearly with her eyes filled with tears and her pupils with fright.

She clenches her teeth and looks away from him, unable to take his glare. _No taking it back now, it's all out there._ She takes a hard breath and starts, "You have every reason to throw me out, Castle, but... I have no one else to turn to." It's then that she looks him in the eye again, feeling another hot tear sting a wet path down her cheek. "I need your help."

He knows he can't stand to see her cry but... this is exactly what he wanted to get passed. This rolling over despite every rational voice in his head telling him not to.

He watches as the tear she let fall comes to a stop at her jawline. "I need you."

* * *

 _A/N: Loved the response I got to the first chapter._

I was going to extend this, but I figured I could dedicate an entire next chapter to laying the rest of it out. Let me know what you think. :)


	3. Chapter 3

It feels like a test, one of his mettle, watching tears fall from those hazel eyes of her's. It kills him, but he knows that if he capitulates to them, it will just end up hurting all the more in the end. He just promised himself that he wouldn't do it again before she showed up at his door, he can't go back on it just because she's here now.

He used to have the ability to read her emotions, but now, every word out of her mouth might as well be a lie. If she could hide that so well this past year, if she could look him in the eye every single day and pretend like that confession on that humid early summer day never happened... either she was never as honest as he made her out to be, or she is and he just didn't want to hear it as a blatant rejection of his deeper affection. The bottom line is right now, he can't trust her.

It's always easier when you know you won't actually have to do it. It was easy to say he'd slam the door in her face when he knew she would never show up just to apologize. And everything else, she could handle on her own. She never truly needed him around. Despite what his ego thinks, her life wouldn't fall apart if he left. If he drowns himself enough in the decanter he's eyeing on the corner of his desk, she might even be better off if he did. But this time, it isn't about her. He has to start thinking of himself.

But for now, Beckett just stands with tight shoulders, watching as the man in front of her, someone who used to be the most familiar person in her entire life, now looks at her as if he's never seen anything good about her and lets out a deep sigh through his nose as he burns his gaze into her again. His eyes have never made her feel small. Safe, comforted, cared for, maybe even special... but never what he's making her feel right now with his hard, straight line of a brow and his half-lidded gaze.

Castle just takes a slow step toward the edge of his desk and finally looks away from her.

She has to say something. If she knew how to put it into words, she would tell him what he meant to her. If she had even the ounce of courage he thinks she had on a normal day, she'd just grab him and foist herself onto his lips. But this whole situation has given her a bit of clairvoyance into herself and now she knows, she wouldn't even be here trying to get through to him if she didn't need his help. What would she have done if Williams hadn't been granted a retrial?

Nothing?

As for now, all she can do is watch as Castle paces his way back to the corner of his desk and reaches for the half-full decanter. His actions quickly send a cold stab of painful grief and heartbreak into the center of her heart. Her hand reaches over and starts to rub against the band of her father's watch, hoping he'll understand and stop himself just by the simple gesture, hoping he'll be as intuitive as she once gave him credit for being. But as his hand grabs the neck of the bottle, her silence breaks.

"Could you please not do that?" She asks him in a hushed, even tone.

The bottle is just off the surface of the desk when it stops in midair and he looks over to her, challenging her telling him what to do now of all times. But she can see the moment when his eyes flick away from her and down to her hands, her thumb still rubbing against the black leather band of her father's watch. It hurts, right in the pit of her stomach, that someone she cares deeply about is drowning themselves in alcohol because they were heartbroken by someone they loved. Hurts, even more, knowing that she could have prevented it.

But Castle just shoots a deadpan stare out into nowhere once he realizes what she means, and with another frustrated sigh, sets the decanter back down with a loud thud. "Right, sorry," he says on another sigh, starting to pace behind his desk, "you'll have to forgive me if we can't all be as strong as Kate Beckett." He snides at her again.

He's never been like this... because of her. If she had the slightest bit of emotional fortitude, she'd fight back with her own plethora of insults, but she doesn't. "Castle..." She starts to softly plead.

"What," he stops her, planting his foot once he reaches the end of his desk and looking at her from the side, "do you want, Beckett?"

She takes a short breath and decides to just get down to business. He clearly doesn't want to talk about it and she probably isn't ready for that conversation yet anyway. "Ned Williams was just granted a retrial."

Castle continues his pacing through his office, keeping his eyes on her, but looking to her with silent confusion. She said it like that was suppose to mean something to him.

But as he gives her a crooked brow, she turns to him fully after letting him meander off to her side. "You've never heard of him?"

"Should I have?" He knew he couldn't keep his tone hostile for long. That sounded almost normal.

"The infamous honeymoon killer?" She tries again, but he still doesn't know who she's talking about by the way he keeps slowly meandering through his office, now in front of his bedroom door. "You've really never heard of him?"

Castle stops in his tracks, being nowhere near in the mood to play nice with her anymore. "I'm sorry if I'm not familiar with every single wannabe Jack the Ripper that's ever walked the earth!" He teeters on the edge of shouting

She has to bite back the breath she drew in to shout back, stopping it in her lungs and tries to speak to him evenly, but it comes out soiled with emotion. "Castle, I understand why you don't want me here, but I am trying _very_ hard to keep it together right now, so please-"

"Beckett," he says sternly, saving her from continuing. He feels slightly bad, and he feels worse for feeling bad. Is he not allowed to be angry and snap at her? No, he has every right in the world to be upset with her. Just because she needs help doesn't change that, does it? He sighs despite himself and turns back around and slowly makes his way back to his desk, "what happened?"

She swallows the lump in her throat as he comes closer to her. "It was just over eleven years ago."

Castle comes to a stop at the front of his desk, just a few feet away from her, the closest he's been to her in what feels like a lifetime. He's standing close enough to where she can smell the high-end shampoo and body wash he used in the shower. She can even smell his aftershave. He just turns and leans back against his desk with his arms crossed, giving her a serious expression with one side of his brow raised slightly higher than the other.

She tries her best to shake everything away and just get down to it. "I was still a beat cop when a pair of bodies turned up downtown. It was a couple who had just celebrated their engagement and had been reported missing three days earlier. They were both shot in the head, execution style, and both showed signs of torture."

She can see Castle's brow shift in curiosity. He's thinking something but keeps it to himself.

"The NYPD investigated it like any other murder case, but when they couldn't turn anything up, they put it on the back burner, waiting for leads."

A part of that gets to him in a way. He knows how committed she is to finding the truth when it comes to their murder cases. She wouldn't just put a case like that, or any case, on the back burner. It's part of the reason why he... no, he can't afford to think about that now. Not now, not ever if he has his way.

"It was about six months after that, that another couple was found in the park, shot execution style after being tortured. They reopened the case but they kept hitting a dead end. The victims weren't connected in any way and they couldn't find any evidence left behind on the bodies, so... they had to move on again. They couldn't find any way that the dots connected other than both couples were engaged."

"Not married?" He asks, their own personal situation slipping his mind.

"Nope," She answers just the same. "And by all accounts, they were relatively happy, just... very in love and very excited to get married. Neither couple had any enemies, so the case stalled again. And another year later, another couple was found on Long Island, same MO. And..." when she starts her next part of her tale, she crosses her arms, wanting to shelter herself from the onslaught of guilt and shame she'll have to treck through, "it was two days before that, that I had made Detective."

Her partner's brow pinches and she looks over to him again. She breathes easily when she meets his eyes, feeling as if it's the first time since she arrived that she can look into those familiar blue eyes and feel welcomed. She's probably not, but she decides to accept it while it's there.

"The honeymoon killer was my first case, Castle. They put me on it because they needed a fresh perspective, a... new set of eyes to look at it differently." She crosses her arms tighter around her chest and looks down, shuffling her foot along the floor.

And he knows what she's doing. It's here that she has something to say, but is waiting for him to know that he wants to hear her. "But?"

She tosses her hair slightly as she looks back up. "There were a lot of people who looked at me and wondered... why her. I was the youngest officer ever to make detective and when they handed me this case, I... felt..."

"Set up to fail." He finishes for her.

She doesn't meet his eyes this time, just gives him a small nod as she wills her hardest to get the tears to stay behind her eyes.

He sighs, remembering that despite what they've been through, she has been through her own share of pain and anguish. It's this that reminds him why he fell for her in the first place, why she made it so hard yet so easy at the same time. _And it's that strength that keeps her away from you, Rick,_ a voice in the back of his mind reminds him.

"There were a lot of people who wanted more to see me crack under the pressure than wanted to see me succeed, so... I did everything I could to find out who the killer was."

Castle gives her a moment before asking her to continue. "And... how'd you do that?"

She shrugs and raises her brow, "Created a profile and ran with it. I suggested to Montgomery that the killer may have experienced relationship trauma himself and was torturing couples as a way to... symbolically kill his own relationship. So, I suggested that we look into domestic abuse hotlines and couple's therapy centers. But the break came when we found a partial thumbprint on one of the victims. We got lucky and got a hit when we ran the print and it came back as Ned Williams. He had been going to a couples therapy group for a few weeks prior to the third couple going missing, didn't have a solid alibi, and had admitted in interrogation that he and his wife had been having some serious problems and he wasn't sure if the child she was carrying was his."

"So, you made the arrest." Castle finishes for her.

She nods firmly, looking into his eyes again. "The partial print was enough to sway Montgomery, so I made the arrest... my first arrest as a detective."

"Did he ever confess?"

"No, he... he maintained his innocence, but um... the judge told him that if he accepted a plea bargain and confessed to the murder we could connect him with, he would do twenty-five years and have a chance for parole. But if he didn't and he decided to go to trial, she would charge him with all six murders and he would do life in prison without parole if he was found guilty. He went to trial and was found guilty and was sentenced to life."

"And..." Castle hesitantly continues, "he was just granted a retrial."

Her insides want to fold in on themselves for a harsh moment as he tells her that, but she sucks it down and just nods.

"On what grounds?"

She looks up to the ceiling and tries her hardest to keep everything buried. "On the grounds that another couple was just found upstate having been killed with the same MO."

"Well," Castle is quick to try and dispell some of her worries, as he always is, looking for the bright side, "it could be a copycat."

But Beckett is already shaking her head before he can get the words out. "No, Montgomery was afraid of that so he never released the exact MO the killer used. At the time, the news had already branded him the honeymoon killer because he was targeting couples. He didn't want to inspire anyone any more than the media already was."

Castle lets out a long breath and relaxes back against his desk, looking away from her as he starts to think. "And now, you want to find out if Ned Williams is the real killer?"

She grits her teeth and looks back up to him, making it a point to look directly in the eye. "I want to find out the truth."

Castle looks back to her, meeting her eyes and is very conscious not to get lost in them, however easy she makes it. But even now, staring into her eyes and having her stare back, as she is now, getting lost in this gaze, it's easy to just let the world and all its problems fall away. It's easy to forget why he shouldn't love her anymore, because he shouldn't. He needs to move on.

"And I need your help to do it, Castle."

There's a light air of silence between them as he takes another long, contemplating breath. "Okay."

Instantly, the knot in her stomach uncoils and her muscles relieve themselves of their tension. Knowing that despite everything, he's still her partner and he's willing to help her, it means a lot. It means that maybe there's hope after all, hope for them. She breathes out a quick breath to mask her smile and looks away from him. "Okay... okay, great." She says and starts to turn.

"But Kate..." He stops her.

And hearing her first name come from him in such a hard tone, brings everything that she had just gotten rid of coming right back as she looks over to his lidded gaze and firmly set jaw.

"This is the last time."

"Bu... what do you mean?" She argues weakly.

"I mean after this... we're done. After we finish this, I can't be your partner anymore."

Her eyes are stinging hotly at the want to let the tears flow, but letting them fall would drive him away even quicker, she knows that. "Why?" Is all she can manage, light and airy in tone as she struggles with emotions rising up her throat.

"Because I have to move on, Beckett." He says calmly, resolving himself to this. "You'll understand when I tell you that I'm not going to keep waiting around just so you can lie to me again, so... once we get this done, that's it, I have to move on."

Beckett swallows thickly again and looks away as she turns around, her heart in pieces on the floor of her knotted stomach. "Okay."


	4. Chapter 4

This is the first time she can recall off the top of her head that the silence between them is unwelcomed and it's her that wants it to end.

There were times in their past that she'd do anything just to have it be quiet for a little while. But over the years, more and more so in recent memory, she's liked, even loved that they could always find something to talk about, whether it be just something having to do with his daughter or his mother, or that playful banter that she'd always act annoyed with but would, at the same time, be very aware of the smile on her face. She grew more accustomed to it than she realized, only realizing it after he left. Not having him around, making ill-timed yet witty remarks, telling jokes that he knows will fall flat before he tells them, acting childish with Esposito and Ryan, it's made her realize just how long the days are without him.

And how empty.

That relationship, that partnership, probably most important friendship she's ever had, was important to her day to day. She always thought she was protecting that by waiting for the right moment if it ever came. She's been challenged by her therapist before, that what if he just isn't willing to wait as long as she thought, but they're both aware in their sessions that she never give him a real answer. She at least thought that if something more never came about between them, she'd at least have that friendship with him.

If she'd known keeping the truth from him would cost her everything... she likes to think that she would have been more willing to tell him the truth, but knows that it probably wouldn't have changed anything and she would have probably just found a way around it.

But now, he's leaving. For once, he spoke it to her plain and simple. No minced words and no carefully handed subtext, as is always the case with conversations about anything more between them. He told her straight, he's through waiting for her if that's how she's going to treat him. And it may be just the trip of self-depreciation she's been having to go through this morning, but she can't blame him.

He's just sitting there, staring out the window of the passenger seat as they crawl through traffic to the precinct. It's been nearly twenty minutes and neither one of them has made a move to speak. But still, she feels there's a conversation leering at her from a dark corner. There's a bitter taste in the air between them that they're going to have to talk about it sometime and they're going to come out of it worse.

Beckett clenches her jaw as traffic starts moving again and forms the words harshly on her tongue. "I don't suppose it would mean anything if I said I never meant to hurt you." She says, keeping her eyes focused into the bumper of the car in front of her.

But he waits, throwing out statement after statement in his mind that will just get him angrier and not make this situation any more pleasant. He feels his fingernails digging into his palm, bitterly thinking that she had every intention of seeing him get hurt, that that's just the way she is with him and always will be. Instead, he lets out a small breath and keeps his eyes staring out the window. "No," he replies in as held back a voice as he can manage. "It wouldn't."

That tone, that angry tone she knows is her's to deal with, she just can't stop it from making her stomach churn. He at least has to understand that she would never intentionally hurt him like that. "I had just been shot, Castle. Can you at least understand why I-"

"No," he stops her in a very firm voice. And she can see out of the corner of her eye that he's looking directly at her, burning angry holes into her temple. And she sees the moment a few long seconds after when he turns back out the window. "It's probably better if I don't understand anyway."

Her response is falling out of her mouth before she can stop it, wanting to at least salvage some semblance of hope of still having him in her life. "That's not true, Castle."

"Beckett." He says and lifts his hand off the center console, only looking at her through the side of his eye. "This is the absolute last thing I want to talk about right now and I don't think I'm even ready to start, okay?"

He ends the conversation with a short sigh and a turn out the passenger side window. But the small sliver of hope she was hoping to get only gets her more of the darkness she's facing with the thought of him actually leaving her behind. Maybe... maybe he's just asking for time, like she did. He gave it to her when she asked. If he's asking for time, she can at least give it to him in return. "Then when?" She blurts out as she rounds the corner to the precinct.

And Castle, not wanting to deal with this in his state of mind, rolls his eyes to himself and lets fly the first response he can think of. "Probably never."

Beckett's heart squeezes as if his hand just made the first move needed to crush it into pieces inside of her chest. He's not even trying to hide how much she hurt him, is he? His mind already seems made up. She was hoping that when he said that this was his last time that he said it with some reservation, that he was willing to have his mind changed, that maybe she could get him to see that there was something between them that was worth what they went through. But now, with the salty taste of his words still lingering in the air between them as she pulls the car to a stop outside the precinct, she knows now that it was probably foolish to think that.

He's made up his mind and he's leaving.

She swallows as much of her emotion as she can and turns off the engine and steps out, quickly heading for the door in a pace that leaves him a few paces behind her as she makes it through the door. As they reach the elevator, she spends most of the time in the newest space of quiet between them by occupying herself with checking messages on her phone that aren't there. And when the doors slide open and she feels the familiarity of the precinct hit her mind, it shifts while she strides out ahead of Castle.

The first thing each of them sees is Ryan and Esposito, coming up from the other direction with a box in each of their arms, being followed by LT and another uniform, carrying another four boxes in their hands. LT and the uniform make a turn away from Castle and Beckett and head across the bullpen and into the conference room while Ryan and Esposito smile over to them, both of them clearly happy to see Castle return to the precinct after two weeks.

"Hey, Castle." Ryan says with a smile.

"Hey, bro," Esposito says as they come to a stop in front of the two, "where you been?"

Castle is careful to look between the boys and Beckett before tossing a casual yet very heavy-feeling smile on his face. "Just taking some time to clear my head is all."

 _Of me,_ Beckett thinks to herself. "What are you guys doing?" She gets down to business and motions to them with her phone.

Ryan lifts up the box in his hands. "Gates told us about the judge granting Williams a retrial. She wants us to get ahead of things and has us going over the original investigation."

"She was looking for you, boss." Esposito continues. "Said to see her once you got in."

Beckett sighs, her already burdened shoulders getting another load as she feels what's to come loam over her in the form of detectives waiting for orders. Letting out a long, tired sigh, she plants one hand on the back of her waist and pushes the other into her hair, feeling a brief instance of her partner eyeing her before turning away to pay attention to something else.

And for Castle, it wasn't easy to follow the guy walking in front of Gates' office and turn away from her. It's not often he wishes she wore her hair back. She doesn't have to push that tangled mess of... perfect brunette locks out of her face when she wears it back. He can't help but wonder if she did it consciously after what he said in the car down on the street. But he just gnashes his teeth and keeps his willpower at the forefront of his mind. After that petty attempt on the way here, not even attempting an apology and instead attempting to justify it, he was probably a fool to think she could be any different.

"Okay," She starts heavily, "I need you guys to go over the original victims and get familiar with the case. Get a murder board started and see if you can't tie Williams to any of the victims in any way besides the fingerprint."

"You got it, Beckett." Ryan says confidently, always willing to help out his friends. "We'll get Williams."

"So you think he did it?" Castle asks, wanting to get started on gathering insight, and wanting to get started on the reason he's ever brought here in the first place.

Ryan looks over to Castle with a lift in his brow. "From experience? It wouldn't be the first time a serial killer orchestrated a killing from behind bars to get himself off."

"That's why," Beckett stop them both by putting a hand out in front of herself, "Castle and I are going down to the prison to interview Williams again." Castle nods to himself and looks down, deciding that the best distraction from all this is to just take what the situation offers and work this like any other case. Ryan and Espo silently nod at their orders and carry their boxes into the conference room to get started.

And being left alone, as alone as they ever get in the precinct, an air of very palpable awkwardness, minced with frustration, falls between them. Beckett turns into him as she lifts an arm up to Gates office. "I just have to talk to Gates before we go."

He just nods and slowly follows her path into the bullpen, slowing to a stop near her desk as she turns into the open door of Gates' office. And being left alone in her habitat, staring down at his chair, what used to be, or will soon no longer be his chair sitting at the edge of her desk, he can't help but dwell on things. Just like it was easy to slam the door in her face when she wasn't actually standing on the other side, it was easy to say that it was his last time when he didn't actually have to be here.

Ryan and Esposito are about the truest friends he's ever had. Sure, they might get on him about free Knicks ticket when he doesn't have any to spare, but they're the only friends he's ever had that he feels actually care about the well being of more than his wallet. But even still, this is the type of life, here in this precinct and sitting in that chair, that he was never really meant for. Alexis told him once, and his mother more than once, that he's not a cop. And since she's made it clear that he's been hoping for something that she clearly has no real interest in, there's no real point in staying here and waiting around for it.

And inside Gates' office, the captain is looking over to her lead detective with a pair of square-rimmed reading glasses hanging from her nose as she goes from stack of paper to stack of paper on her desk. "Ah, Detective Beckett." She greets her in a casual tone.

Beckett comes to stand in front of her desk with her hands clasped professionally in front of her. "You wanted to see me, Sir?"

"I got word a little over an hour ago about Ned Williams, Detective." Gates starts off without skipping a beat as she sets down a sheet of paper and lifts up another. "I already had detectives Ryan and Esposito on it. Looks like we'll have to reopen the investigation."

With a lump forming in her throat, Beckett nods once. "I understand, Sir."

"Do you have any doubt as to Williams' conviction, Beckett?" Gates asks. "Because you will, of course, be asked to testify again."

Beckett squeezes her hands together and hardens her resolve. She wants her partner by her side, not that Castle she helped create standing out there now... she wants her partner back. He'd know what to say. "Sir, I want to find out who the real honeymoon killer is." She says and looks Gates squarely in the eye. "And if it turns out to be Ned Williams, then so be it."

Gates gives a slow nod as a silent reply before raising a brow. "And if it turns out to be otherwise?"

"Then there's an innocent man I'd like to get out of prison, Sir."

Her captain gives her a small smile, obviously having received the answer she was searching for, and sets down the papers in her hands and pull her glasses off her nose and lets them hang from the band around her neck. "Whatever you need to do that, Detective, it's yours. I understand is riding on this. What your facing is... well, every detective's worst nightmare. The thought that they might have put an innocent person in jail and let a killer go free, I've seen good cops cave under that kind of pressure. So, whatever you need to get this done, Beckett, just say the word."

At least she has the support of someone, at least there's still someone she can count on. She wishes she could feel like she could count on her partner, but that's gone. "I need room, Sir." She answers plainly. "I brought Castle in to look over the case and I'm hoping that he'll know some experts we can bring in and that he'll see something that I missed ten years ago. I'm taking him down to the prison to get a feel for Williams now."

Gates nods and picks her papers back up with one hand and puts her glasses back on with the other. "Before you do that, I had the precinct that picked up the latest couple send over their findings to Dr. Parish. I want you to go down and see exactly how much they match up to the original couples. With any luck, this could just be a copycat who made a few lucky guesses."

Beckett accepts her orders silently and heads out the door, seeing Castle standing next to his chair with that same straight-browed thousand yard stare he's had ever since she knocked on his door. For the first time, she feels she has to choose her words carefully. No one else is aware of their situation and she would like to keep it that way. She doesn't need him snapping at something she might say out of turn. She's sure that Ryan and Esposito picked up on something when they walked off the elevator and neither of them had a cup of coffee in their hands. And least of all, she doesn't need them taking his side. She feels bad enough about what she did, she doesn't need another pair of voices telling her she made a giant mistake.

"Ready to go?" He asks her as she steps up to him. His tone sounds casual, like nothing is wrong. But the look in his eyes... that dead, lifeless, tired look, is enough to give everything away.

"Yeah," She says and looks away from it, "we just have to stop by the morgue real quick and see what Lanie has on this latest set of bodies before we go."

Castle just gives her a silent nod and follows behind her with his hands hanging out of his pockets, a carelessness slothing into his stride.

And Beckett knows, knows all too well, that if Ryan and Esposito didn't pick up on anything, Lanie will.

* * *

 _A/N: Thanks for all of you who reviewed! I didn't realize how much of a response this would get. Post 47 Seconds stories tend to fall flat because they've been done a thousand times over. Glad to see this didn't get lost in the trend._

 _Let me know what you think as I continue to flesh out the case more and more with these next few chapters. Thanks for all the ups. :)_


	5. Chapter 5

He knows by the sheer amount of boxes he saw go into the conference room up in the bullpen that it's going to be a long... alcohol-free night. If only she hadn't stopped him from having that last bit of scotch, or if he hadn't caved into her painful request out of knowing what that watch means to her, he might be in a little better place. But now, his buzz is gone, his stomach is aching, and he's standing in the elevator with the last woman he'd want to be trapped in here with.

He just wants to see his little girl. That always makes him feel better, it's always good for a smile. So as they pass another floor in heavy silence, leaned back against the wall of the elevator, he digs his phone out of his pocket and starts a text message intended for Alexis.

 _'Hey, pumpkin, I got roped into a case. Gonna be an all-nighter. Will you be alright with dinner?'_

She should be in her study hall period, she might be able to sneak out a reply. And just as he's shoving his phone back into his pocket, he feels it buzz in his hand. ' _Good, maybe it will get you out of that funk!'_ He rolls his eyes as he stops reading the text, biting the inside of his lip at his smile. It's been an open-secret, teetering on inside joke, that he's been out of it ever since the curtain got pulled back on what was really going on. _'Yeah, Gram and I can make something.'_

He grins to himself as he thinks of a funny reply. _'You're right, take-out does sound good.'_

 _'Be careful, Dad. Luv you!'_

Castle stops and rereads her reply over and over again, imagining her smile and the sound of her sweet little voice as she would say it to him. He can't help but remember her as that adorable little two and a half foot tall little ball of red pigtails he'd put up on his shoulders and how she'd say it then.

And it's then that his phone goes off in his hand again, breaking him out of his mind. _'BTW, got my cap and gown today!'_

When he scrolls down to the picture she just sent him, of her standing in a linoleum hallway of Marlowe Prep clad in a dark green graduation cap and gown, making the shape of a heart with her hands and smiling brightly at the camera, his heart is stabbed with an intense feeling of both immense and overwhelming pride, then followed by a cold, sour taste of missing terribly that small little girl he'd carry around on his shoulders. It's pictures like this one that the realization slaps him in the face that his little girl is all grown up.

Beside him, Beckett watches him out of the corner of her eye, not wanting to tread on his clearly important personal space any more than she already has, wanting now to keep things at least professional. But she'd know that soft, face consuming, far away looking smile from anywhere. He always has that particular smile when he's thinking of Alexis.

She still remembers it. Seeing him as a father was the first thing that made her see there was that different side to him. It's the first thing she fell for about him. She's seen far too many terrible parents in her line of work. Castle being the amazing father he is to Alexis is always enough to remind her that there's a reason she fell for him when things get rocky between them. He's being distant and short with her now, but that smile, it's enough to make her feel drawn to him in a way she hasn't since before this whole thing started two weeks ago.

"What's up?" She sneaks in, passed his defenses.

Castle looks over to her with his brow raised, forgetting himself for a moment. "Oh, nothing," he sighs and looks back down to his phone, back down to the riptide of emotions all in one picture. "Just uh..." he starts and lifts his phone up, "Alexis got her cap and gown today for graduation."

Kate's heart swells slowly in her chest, imagining him sitting in the audience of his daughter's graduation, filled with pride. She watches him as his eyes turn back down to his phone. "Big milestone." She small talks.

Caught up in letting his mind wander back to the times he got to play the doting father he was to Alexis after her mother had left, comparable to nothing else in his life, he doesn't notice himself softening up to Beckett, who's well aware of the fact she's using it to her advantage, hoping it doesn't backfire.

"You know, it's times like this when you truly understand the term 'sands of time'." He says in a soft voice. Beckett feels her heart pulled, loving the times when he reminds her that there's still a very gifted writer beneath all the show. "You try to grab some but it just... slips through your fingers. I mean, it was just yesterday that I'd be waking her up from her nap on the couch in my office."

Beckett smiles sideways, seeing another opportunity. "The couch in your office is pretty comfortable." She agrees.

"I really miss when there was an additional d-y at the end of that 'dad'. Now, I'm just... Dad." He shrugs his shoulders. "Is it wrong that I don't want her to grow up?"

Beckett has to bite back her smile, so much so that she's sure she's smiling and should probably just give up trying to hold it back. "Actually, I think it's pretty normal, Castle."

Luckily for her, she is able not to give him a chance to rebut and snark his way back to where they were before stepping onto this elevator ride as the doors in front of them open to the hallway in the morgue. She is quick to shove off the wall and stride in long steps down the hall and into the morgue, where Lanie sits on a stool behind the table in dark pink scrubs, a large photo in one hand, a large styrofoam cup of lemonade in the other, the straw being chewed on in her mouth.

"Hey, Lanie." Beckett announces their presence.

Lanie's straw sputters before she answers back. "Hey, girl." She says with the straw still in her mouth. But when she looks up and sees Castle standing behind Beckett, his face set back into hard-etched seriousness and his hands shoved back into his pockets, Lanie becomes surprised... and instantly curious. "Castle?"

Castle sends the ME a hard smirk, "Dr. Parish."

"Where've you been?" She asks with a slight grin as she sets the photo down and slides off her stool. "Nice to see Beckett finally managed to drag you out from under that rock you've been hiding under."

"Just thought I'd help out." Castle ends Lanie's joking.

"What've you got, Lanie?" Beckett asks, getting Lanie down to business before she can prod anymore. At least while Castle is still within earshot.

Lanie lets out a breath, purses her lips, and sets down her cup on the end of the table. "Save for the fact the medical examiner up there doesn't take very good pictures, all signs are nearly identical to the original honeymoon killer." Lanie explains and hands Beckett the first photo.

She takes it and examines it, a picture of the female victims wrist. "Same marks on their wrists and abdomen showing evidence of being restrained?"

"Yep," Lanie nods, showing her another picture of the male victims deeply bruised abdominal area. "All marks are exact same size, and from the swabs done, the killer used the same material as before too."

"What do you mean?" Castle asks.

Looking over to Castle, Lanie begins to explain. "Original investigation showed that all the victims were restrained by the wrists and the waist. Evidence of iron shavings led the investigators to believe they were held by iron cuffs."

"What about the electrical burns?" Beckett asks, her brow pinched in curiosity as she hands Lanie back the photo and grabs for the next one she's being handed.

And as Beckett looks over the photo of the raw and charred flesh of the victims back and hands, Lanie continues. "While they can't be exact, they were done using the same object. From the look of this, and from the pictures of the original victims, it was enough to cause some serious pain, but not enough to kill them."

"So," Castle starts, taking another step forward to stand next to Beckett at the edge of the table, "had they not been shot, they would have lived?"

"Might have had some scars, but most definitely. Speaking of." Lanie says and hands Beckett another photo. "Gunshot was the same too. Back of the head, execution style, nine mill."

"Son of a bitch." Beckett angrily mutters and plants her clenched fists down onto the examining table, leaning forward in frustration.

"So all the victims were restrained, exposed to shock torture... then killed with a quick shot to the back of the head?" Castle asks the two women.

Beckett runs a finger around her ear to push her hair back and looks over at him. "Yeah, why?"

"I don't know. Something about it doesn't make sense." He thinks out loud, reaching over to pick up another photo. "Why go through all the trouble to restrain someone and torture them with non-lethal shock torture if you're just going to kill them that quickly?"

Beckett stands back up straight and turns to face her partner, giving him a moment to look over the photo in his hand. "We figured it was just to see them in pain, that he was feeding off the need to watch a couple suffer like he was in his own relationship."

"And this Williams guy you arrested seems like the type?"

"He had a history of violence and admitted that he was having relationship troubles with his wife. He thought she was cheating on him."

Castle is silent for a moment before looking back down to the photo, "Hmm."

As Castle continues to mull over the case details he just received, Beckett turns back to Lanie with a hopeful arch in her brow. "Is there any way this could be a copycat, Lanie?"

Lanie is slow to shake her head. "Unless our killer had access to the case files, the only other person that could do it like this is the honeymoon killer."

And with that, a heavy swath of shame, guilt, grief, anger, and hopelessness cuts its way through her system. She was wrong. Could she have really put an innocent man behind bars for this long? How many more people that she's put away are actually innocent? How many more lives and families has she torn apart and ruined?

"Bu... mmm..." Castle shakes his head as he cuts himself off.

"No, what is it?" Beckett is quick to stop him, wanting to catch whatever nonsensical piece of thought he might have.

He sighs and shifts his weight. "Let's say that this Williams guy really _is_ innocent and the real killer is still out there." Beckett looks him in the eye, briefly thinking that she sees the look of a man she can finally recognize, that spark of curiosity and excitement that comes along with him getting deep into the story. "Why'd he stop killing?"

"Castle, if we have to assume that Williams is innocent, we have to start back at square one!" Beckett starts to argue. Because if that's the case, it could be days or even weeks before they make any headway.

"Beckett, I know you don't like the idea, but we might have to start looking at him as innocent." He argues back.

"And what if he isn't, huh? What then?" She continues the fight, shifting her weight and planting a hand on her hip.

"Then we'll prove it." He says sternly, looking her in the eye with that new look of impatience and seriousness she isn't used to. "And here I thought that's why you brought me here." He jabs in a low tone before turning and walking out the door.

Standing frozen in place, Beckett lets her eyes drift shut before hanging her head low. "Okay, what happened?" Lanie quickly cuts in right as she sees the door swing shut.

And being in no mood to dance around the fire, Beckett turns to Lanie and leans against the table. "Castle's pretty upset with me." She says with a twinge in her voice. "Just in case you didn't glean that from how he looked ready to bite my head off."

"No, trust me, I gleaned that. Now, what happened? Last time I saw you two together, you looked like you were in a romantic comedy or something? What the hell is this?" Lanie asks, waving her hand between her friend and the door Castle just stormed out of.

"The part of the movie where I break his heart." She admits very painfully. It hurts to admit it, right in the center of her chest. Lanie loudly asks her for details by silently widening her eyes and leaning forward. Beckett sighs again, a mantra of trying to let out as much emotion as she can so it doesn't overwhelm her. "Do you remember the day I got shot?"

"Yeah, of course, I do, but what does that have to do with this?"

"Everything, Lanie, because two weeks ago, Castle found out that I remember it too." Lanie is still staring at her with wide-eyed confusion, waiting for her to elaborate. She doesn't want to and hopes for a few seconds that the large gaps will fill themselves in so she doesn't have to know what it feels like to admit all of it out loud to an unobjective voice such as her best friend. "I told everyone that I don't remember my shooting because something happened that I didn't want to face."

"...Like?"

Beckett tries to swallow her aching heart, trying to force it back down to her tightening chest, before answering. "Like Castle telling me how he really felt."

When Lanie's rapid blinking stops, and it's just her staring over to the detective with a straight brow, an agape mouth, and slack jaw, she knows that she's going to regret wanting someone else to talk to about this. She hasn't even talked to her dad about this. And Castle... the first person she should talk to about this is the last person probably willing to listen.

"Wait." Lanie finally starts, leaning back and putting her hands out. "You're telling me that Castle told you he was in love with you."

"Yes," Beckett breathes painfully.

"When you were shot at Montgomery's funeral-"

"Yes," She breathes out again, her eyes burning.

"And you lied and told him that you don't remember?!"

With tears finally springing off her lashes, Beckett's stomach folds in on itself. "For god's sake, Lanie, yes! Did you not hear me?"

Lanie, seeing her friends tears, softens her approach. "And... I'm guessing that Castle didn't hear it from you telling him, did he?"

Beckett angrily swats away the tear tracks from her cheeks with her palm. "No, he was standing in observation when I was interrogating that kid from the bombing case two weeks ago when he heard it."

"Oh, girl, you have to fix this." Lanie rushes. Lanie knows, even if she's never gotten her to openly admit to it, that she wants to be with Castle. She knows that Beckett would want it to be what she's been avoiding with everyone else and want it to be serious. But is also well aware of the fact that she would also want nothing to go wrong and to take anything going wrong as the first sign to bail.

"Don't you think I'm trying, Lane?" Beckett pleads, leaning forward as she argues tearfully. "He just won't let me talk to him. He won't even give me a chance to explain."

"Well, then stop trying to explain it, Kate." Lanie tells her softly and looks across the table, waiting for her friend to give her her tear-filled, heart wrenched eyes. "Just say you're sorry."

* * *

 _A/N: Turned on Buckethead's Pike#104 and cranked this out for you guys this morning. Hope you like it. Stoked to see the response I'm getting._

Thanks for all the ups and support. You guys rock the hardest! Let me know!


	6. Chapter 6

It's a tense car ride out past the city limits to the prison. The words are itching at the back of her throat, but the will to summon them is about as absent as his handsome, boyish smirk and clever dialogue she's grown to cherish. Still, even as they make it across the bridge, he's just staring stoically out the window, not even moving to speak to her about the case. If they were to have just come from a body drop, his voice would be tight with excitement and rushed with wild theories.

Not now.

He's just shutting her out. Probably something she deserves. If she thought he would be the type to make those connections, she would think that this is a form of pseudo-punishment, giving her the cold shoulder and ignoring her, the way she did to him after she was released from the hospital. And in truth, the closer they've gotten, the more she's come to question why she did that, why she shut herself out from the world, but most importantly to him.

At the hospital, it made perfect sense, and the decision was made the second she saw him with those orange flowers in his hands, standing in the doorway to her guarded room. That she needed that time away, to get space from everything, including him, to get a sense of where everything was supposed to be. But now, seeing what it feels like to be brushed off and ignored like this, even in just this manner, it's painful.

She's sitting right here, he can talk to her. She'd love to be talking to him right now. She's just a few words away.

 _Just like he was a phone call away?_ A voice knocks inside of her head.

No use taking that swan dive down that abyss just yet since she's pulling up to the gate of the prison and flashing her badge. She parks in between a van and another unmarked service vehicle and grabs the folder off of the backseat. And luckily, at least what she considers luck between them at this point, he doesn't object when she falls into step with him, close enough to where they would be brushing shoulders if she were to take a misstep. As she's opening up the folder and searching through her papers, she takes a glimpse ahead to the entrance and sees a familiar looking suit come walking out.

A cold shiver runs down her spine, unusual but normal for her unconfident self when she sees Williams lawyer come striding out of the door with one hand in his pocket and the other with a dark brown briefcase hanging from it. Instinctively, her hand shoots with nerves and she reaches over, grabbing onto his forearm as if a way to draw strength from this invasive touch.

He doesn't notice himself pulling his forearm in, not to shake her off but to pull her in for support. Because it's a face he hasn't seen in over twenty-three years, and one he was hoping never to see again. "Castle, that's Willaims' lawyer."

She is too consumed with trying to shore up her front to notice Castle's expression, even as Craig Vernon sees, notices, and smiles at them all in a matter of quick few seconds. Beckett lets her hand fall off of Castle's sleeve and she can hear the very audible sigh come from him. And it isn't until now that she looks over to see that stern, dead expression that he's been giving to her shooting its way over to the lawyer.

"Ricky Rodgers? Is that you?" The lawyer calls as they all slow to a stop in front of each other.

Castle smiles a heavy, sarcastic smirk, gnashing his teeth inside his mouth. "Craig Vernon."

Beckett takes a step to the side and looks between the two, dumbfounded. "Wait... you two know each other?" She asks the two of them but is looking at her partner.

"We went to Edgewyck together," Castle states in a low tone, looking right past her and boring his eyes into the suited slime standing in front of him.

"Ricky and I were best buds back in high school," Vernon says in a cocky tone as he looks between Castle and Beckett.

Castle bites his smirk a bit and she can see his shell, his armor grow thicker as he shifts his weight. "Craig here was one of the guys who felt I didn't belong at Edgewyck because daddy wasn't on the board of a hedge fund. Gave me quite a hard time. How's daddy dearest doing nowadays?" Castle asks with a slight waggle of his brow.

"Broke." The lawyer says while pulling on the lapels of his suit jacket. "Lost everything in the recession, but uh... I'm doing better than ever."

"Mmm," Castle hums and returns that same cold, emotionless, thousand-yard-stare he was giving her this morning.

"Yep, got my own firm in Manhattan and doing great." Vernon brags, almost sickeningly before pouting out his lips and nodding his head over to her partner.

"Nice to see you got a career to go with that thick layer of slime you were covered in back in high school," Castle comments off-handedly, making Beckett pull back a fighting smile, having to choke on her laughter.

"Aw, don't be like that. What about you, Rodgers? You know, if you ever need a job, my secretaries are always getting me the wrong coffee. What are you doing these days, huh?"

Castle lifts his brow and shakes his head slightly, looking away. "Hmm? Oh, nothing that glamorous. But I'll tell you what, Craig... if you really want to catch up," he states in a confident tone as he takes a step closer to him, "you can read the bio on the back of any one of my twenty-seven bestsellers, three of which based on my lovely partner here."

It's then that she notices Vernon's face has fallen flat as he looks over to her, then back at Castle. After a moment, he takes a challenging step toward Castle, getting in his face. "You know, your _partner_ put an innocent man in prison, Rodgers."

"If my partner arrested him, rest assured, he's guilty of something."

"She put him away for murders he didn't commit!" Vernon spits in a raised tone.

"And I started a rumor that you were gay in high school!" Castle spits back, not moving back an inch. She can see the lawyer snarl his teeth silently at her partner for a second before backing off and shuffling backward from the man, whom just made her admiration tenfold from this exchange. It's easy to forget that under that childish, overly excited, touching-everything persona he has that there's a truly brave man behind it all.

"Be careful with this, Rodgers, or you're going to end up looking like a fool." Craig says in a low tone just before stepping past him, purposefully knocking him in the shoulder as he does.

"You can rest easy, Vernon. I can look like a fool all on my own, thank you."

The lawyer sends another mean glare over his shoulder while marching through the parking lot of the prison, but Castle looks instead over to Beckett, who's smiling a bitten smile and makes the move to have him fall back into step with her. With his hands still shoved in his pockets, Castle lets out a heavy sigh and his expression soon falls back into that stoic stare.

But when she sees it out of the corner of her eye, Beckett feels her arm move of its own accord and knocking her elbow against his forearm, but she gains no immediate reaction from the motion. "Thanks," she pushes out, finally gaining his eyes back and sees he's looking at her with a bit of a sad arch in his brow, but a slight smirk teasing one side of his lips, "for that... for standing up for me like that."

Castle purses his lips and shakes his head as if it was nothing, "He was always an ass." He mutters before looking back over to her. "Guess some things never change."

Beckett chuckles softly and sends him a smile, not noticing the moment of normalcy between them. They take another few steps toward the entrance before she throws caution to the wind and continues. "You know, my _dad's_ a lawyer, right?"

"Yeah, but your dad never pulled my shorts down in gym class."

* * *

Inside the prison, after twenty minutes of getting through security, Castle and Beckett are being led down a corridor in holding by a large-set prison guard, brimming with confidence with his shoulders rolled back and chin up as he leads the two past the cells of convicts. Castle is almost jealous, wishing he could siphon off some of the guard's confidence. There was a time a few weeks ago when he had that confidence. When he was willing to stare almost anything square in the eye and smile, as long as he had his partner by his side.

Now, her being next to him is nothing short of a hindrance. Nothing but a reminder that no matter what he does, how far he rolls his shoulders back and how high he sticks his chin, it will never be good enough for her. But he keeps it all to himself and scrunches the lining of his pockets together. And as they take another few steps, the prisoners in their cells clearly notice the woman striding through the prison, and with each passing cell, their voices start getting raised as they call after her.

Beckett pays it no mind, shut off to their cat-calling. But when they reach the midway point of the hall, a man lurches forward and his body slams against the door of his cell. She jumps slightly before quickly regaining her footing, her eyes following the guard as he slams his palm against the bars to send the prisoner back.

And taking it as his cue, Castle steps around her and puts himself between her and the line of criminals, leading her forward with a hand on the small of her back, leaning in close to her. It's an instinct on his part. A reaction to his reptile brain to protect the women in his life, to take the brunt of whatever is coming at her, to remind the world that if it wants her, it will have to go through him. It's been over-sensitized because of Alexis, the part of his brain still active, looking out for saber-tooth tigers at the mouth of the cave.

But for Beckett, she feels herself drift into his touch and the opening he's offering in his side, wanting to step into his arms right here in the middle of the prison. And his inner-guardian sheltering her from the prisoners still calling after her makes the trip down the corridor go a lot faster, because it only seems like a few steps with him at her side that they're at the end of the hallway and turning into another hallway and making their way into where they're meeting with Ned Williams.

Once they're inside, Williams is already waiting on the other side of the table, staring at them emotionlessly.

It's the first time Castle is seeing the man. He's a small man, seeming no taller than five-eight from what he can see of him sitting down. Small frame, not well built at all, thin and frail hair over very gaunt cheekbones and dead eyes. Castle's first impression is that of nothing more than a beggar, not a serial murderer smart enough to kill six people and stage another two murders from prison, like they are all hoping for.

Beckett is the first to step farther into the room, pulling out the chair on the left and sitting down, clasping her hands together and doing a slight toss of her hair over her shoulder. Castle watching Willaims closely, seeing he doesn't even look in her direction, as if she's not even there. It would make sense, to him. If it is true and he is innocent, she's the woman who sent him to jail for ten years over nothing. Slowly, Castle pulls out the chair next to Beckett and sits down, looking back over to Williams.

"What do you want?" Williams asks after a long, tense moment of silence between the three.

 _Certainly the voice of a psycho-killer,_ Castle thinks to himself as Williams speaks, breaking the silence.

"This is Richard Castle," Beckett starts, but hesitates before calling him her partner. He's made it clear that this is his last case, might as well start getting used to the idea of going it alone. "He's assisting me on the investigation."

"I told you before, Detective." Willaims starts in the same low tone as he shifts his eyes slowly over to her. "I _didn't_... kill anybody."

Beckett's reply comes fast. "Then let us prove it." After staring her down, Williams lets out a breath and looks straightforward again, once again refusing eye contact. "I need you to go over the night Sheela Watson and Michael Garrett came to the bar where you were working."

Williams lets out another breath and starts, with Castle ready to commit every detail to memory. "I started my shift at six that night. They came in at seven-thirty. She ordered a glass of wine and he ordered an IPA. I served them their drinks and they told me they were there celebrating their engagement. Like any good bartender would, I congratulated them and made the first round on the house. They thanked me and continued drinking. Two hours later, they started to cause trouble and I told them to settle down. They agreed and they left." Then, he looks directly into Castle's eye. "And I never saw them again."

Beckett is leaning forward on her arms, quickly inserting her side of the story. "Your co-worker told us that Michael Garret shoved you and it got confrontational."

"He lied." Williams says lowly, finally looking over to her. "Our boss would have fired me if we ever got into a fight with a customer and I couldn't afford to lose my job... at the time."

"Wuh..." Castle begins, lifting his hand to Beckett and looking over to Williams, gaining his attention. "Why would your coworker lie about that?"

"I got better tips because I worked on Friday and Saturday nights. He wanted that spot but wasn't fast enough."

"So he lied hoping to get you in trouble with your boss?" Castle asks.

"And I get thrown in prison for life." Williams shrugs his shoulders. "Guess he got what he wanted."

"Your fingerprint was found on Michael Garret, Ned." Beckett jumps to defend herself. "You lied about confronting him _and_ you admitted that you thought about going after your wife's lover."

With that, Willaims just smirks and chuckles under his breath. And after a moment, he looks back up to her. "Still not married?" He asks her with a dark smile. When her breath catches in her throat and her heart squeezes, her legs twinge and she tries her hardest not to make her eyes shift over to the man sitting next to her... the one man she's actually been able to envision that with. "Then I guess you wouldn't know what it feels like."

But Castle, he's looking directly at Williams with a knot in his brow.

"You don't know what it's like to find out the woman that took vows for you would go and cheat on you."

"Yes, I do." Castle states plainly.

Beckett is caught off her guard and her eyes whip over to him, the gears in her mind already churning and spinning, snapping into place a hundred theories all at once as to what he could possibly mean. She knows he's serious and not just playing to Williams by the serious look in his eyes.

But Williams looks over to him and raises a brow. "Then you'd know the feeling of wanting to kill him then, right? What did you do, huh?"

"I took my daughter and filed for divorce."

With Castle's simple reply, Williams is forced to lean back in his chair and stare off into space again. "I didn't kill anyone. I have nothing more to say."

Beckett waits for him for a long few seconds before nodding and standing up out of her chair. Castle is quick to follow her out and find the guard waiting for them to lead them out. They are both silent, not so much as looking in the other's direction as they head out of the prison and out to the parking lot. They each fall down into the seats of her Crown Vic silently and close the doors. But Beckett waits before pulling out her keys, sitting next to him with just one thing on her mind.

She never considered that he's been through just as much heartbreak as anyone else. He's always been all smiles and jokes, letting most things roll off his back that she never thought he would have gone through something like that. She cares about him a lot more than she knew she had in her, because now, knowing this, she never wants to see him hurt again. Just imagining him, seeing the heartbreak plain on his face as he finds out that his wife had an affair is painful. And thinking back to his wording, it's easy to figure out who it was.

"You never told me that Meredith cheated on you." She says in a small, almost apologetic voice and looks over to him, already staring back out the window.

"Never really thought it was worth mentioning." He mutters back.

Beckett nods at his response, understanding more than most the need to keep a troubled past in the past so you don't have to deal with it. She looks down at her lap before continuing. "I just... never would have guessed if you didn't say anything, that's all. What... with her annual... you know." She minces words.

Castle lets out a heavy sigh despite himself and leans himself back in the seat. he remembers the kind of man he was before he consciously started to better himself into someone she'd want to be with. Lord only knows where he'd be if he'd known back then that it would have been for nothing because now, he can't go back to who he was before, even if he tried. "You get your heart broken enough times, eventually you stop caring about what it all means."

That statement is enough to break her own heart. She can't stand the fact that not only did she break his spirit and his heart, but hurt him enough to just make him lose faith in everything about himself that she fell for.

But after another moment, he's continuing. "Meredith and I got divorced because she said that her spending time at home with Alexis was a sacrifice." His voice gains her eyes back as she looks over to him again, curious to hear what really happened, even if it is as vague as she thinks it's going to be. "That's what she viewed our daughter as... a sacrifice. I never got her to see that all I gave up when we had Alexis was _not_ a sacrifice because I loved her. She could never see that I _wanted_ to do everything I did for her because she was my little girl. To Meredith, Alexis was... a house chore. Her affair was just her looking for an out."

By the end of it, she has a sad smile spreading across her face, falling for him all over again because of just how much he loves his daughter and what a great father he is.

"You know, everybody always talks about making sacrifices for their children. To this day, I never could understand that. I never _lost_ anything when I got to raise her. I guess I'm just weird in that I love my daughter that much."

Beckett's eyes are already burning, and she's sure that a few stray tears have already fallen as the words form on her throat." I'm sorry."

Castle looks over to her with a raised brow, silently about to ask her what she means until he sees her shaking her head and looking away from him, quickly fumbling to get the keys into the ignition.

"A-about Meredith, I'm sorry she cheated on you." She wants to slap herself for not just saying it. Her heart wants to fix this, wants to fix them, make them better so she can finally be where she truly wanted to be in their relationship. But her pride still has a stranglehold over her, it seems, and won't let her. "You don't deserve that."

He lets out a small breath and looks away from her. "Thanks."

* * *

 _A/N: Had about half of it written for a week, but didn't find the energy to write the rest of it until this morning. Hope you like it. :)_


	7. Chapter 7

It's both torture and bliss to have him talking to her again on the way back.

He's asking for tidbits on the case here and there, and she's either tricking him into at least being her friend again by giving them to him with a light-hearted tone, or is making herself look like a complete idiot. They cross back over the bridge when he brings up the partial print. "A partial print was enough to sway a jury?" He asks her, with his phone in his hand.

She shrugs her shoulders, her arms flopping slightly with casualness. "It was enough to put him with Michael Garret and enough to prove that he lied in interrogation about never having touched him."

Castle nods his head slightly with a purse of his lips. "Make him out to be dishonest, makes the jury question what else he lied about." He thinks out loud. And it's then that she notices out of the corner of her eye that he's texting someone.

She's had to remind him, borderline scold him, for talking about open investigations before. "Castle, who are you texting?" She asks him, her voice seeping with impatience and anger.

But Castle, he stops typing out his message and looks ahead, a deadpan stare falling over his features. He knows all too well what she really means. _How many times do I have to remind you, why do you have to always be so childish, why can't you just behave?_ He knows that he acts childish when she gets too serious. It's a conscious effort on his part, an effort to get her to lighten up and start taking things with a bit of a smile instead of judging it to see whether it's worthy of smiling for or not.

He's in the last mood that would end this peacefully, but not in the mood it would take to have it out with her. "A professor at NYU, Detective." He over enunciates her title.

She does a quick double take between him and the traffic in front of her. He's not looking at her, not even to send her a glare that says ' _back off'._ The car is thickly silent for an agonizing moment before his thumb starts moving again.

"I worked with him back when I was starting out Derrick Storm. He's a fingerprint expert, I'm hoping he can end this quickly and say that the print really does belong Ned Williams."

His words send a violent lump to clog her throat. Maybe she shouldn't have asked for his help. If he's being like this, making it clear that this is the last place he wants to be, it just isn't worth the heartache he's making her cope with. There's a small part of her that's telling her to just thrust herself at him, to turn off the road and reach over and grab his face, yank him over the center console and kiss him until he's happy with her again. It's been a small, whispering part of her for some time, growing louder and gaining traction in the internal debate over the past year.

Now, it's just another voice in her head.

But she never listens to it. Out of cowardice or pride, she never can tell.

She swallows past the lump in her throat again and tightens the sweaty grip on the hot plastic of the steering wheel. "Thanks."

Luckily, he receives a reply quickly. "He says he's on board. I'll have Ryan fax over the prints and he should have something for us pretty soon."

She lets him continue working on his phone as she creeps through traffic back to the precinct. And for Castle, his ability to focus his mind on one thing is coming in handy. He uses it a lot when he's writing. The only thing that could ever break him out of that trance was the cry of Alexis. Luckily, back in the day, Meredith was only needy for attention and he could handle that. But a good mystery to solve, a nice case to put his mind to, now that he thinks about it, is probably just what he needs. The only thing he needs to get around is Beckett.

He knows how she is, and this case is meaningful to her. She's going to be consumed by it, so she'll probably be too distracted to even think about them once they get really started on things. And with this thought juggling around inside his head for a second, he can't help but chuckle bitterly to himself as he types out his text message to Ryan. It's her getting consumed by cases that has kept him from getting any closer to her in the first place. Her case is the most important thing to her. He knows that.

It's one of the reasons he never told her. One of the more selfish reasons, anyway.

As they pull into the carpool and step out, Castle tags behind her a bit as he pushes his phone back down into his pocket. After a long elevator ride, a stop to let some people on from robbery, they step off and make their way into the bullpen where they find Esposito waving them into the conference room, seeing him and Ryan already have everything set up, with a murder board already put up. Beckett sets her black, leather-bound folder down on the corner of the table as they enter the room and Castle wastes no time in rushing toward the board to study the details.

"So, Williams' story didn't change. Espo, do you have the tapes from the original interrogation?" Beckett starts in her barking of orders.

"Right here," he answers as he pulls out a set of tapes from the bottom of one of the evidence boxes.

"Okay, go over them and see if we can't nail him from a different angle. He claims that the third couple came into the bar on his shift, he gave them a round on the house for their engagement, they got rowdy, and he told them to settle down and they left. But if I remember right, he originally claimed that he told them to leave."

"Did you ever question the bar owner?" Castle asks out of nowhere, still skimming over the details on the murder board.

Beckett stops herself and looks over to him, standing straight-shouldered in front of the board, not even looking back at her. "Why?"

"Well, as the owner of a bar, I can tell you that you don't kick people out for just being rowdy. Especially if it was a Friday night. And if they did start to act up and Willaims asked them to settle down, why did they leave? From my experience, the night's just starting when I get asked to settle down."

Beckett feels her teeth wanting to grind. As if she didn't already ask all these questions before. "We questioned the staff that was present at that night, Castle. So no, we didn't question the owner. Unless you're at the Old Haunt every single Friday night."

"I interview all of my bartenders and consider them all pretty good friends, Beckett." He tells her sternly, finally looking at her over his shoulder. And after a few seconds of glaring at her, his finger jabs into the whiteboard. "I'm familiar with this bar and I know the owner. He helped me in taking over the Old Haunt and he would know if one of his bartenders would get physical with one of his customers. If he would, then that means he most likely lied about what happened that night between him and Michael Garret."

After staring her down for another few seconds, feeling both Ryan and Espo's eyes shift between the two of them, Castle turns back to the murder board.

"If not, then we should probably look for a new suspect."

Once his words stop reverberating off the walls of her chest and she looks back down to the table filled with evidence bags and case files, Ryan takes the silence as his cue and knocks his partner in the arm with the back of his hand. "Uhh..." he stumbles, "we're gonna go... look over these tapes." He and Espo quickly march out of the room, Ryan tugging on the knob on his way out to have the door slide closed, stopping just before the latch clicks.

He takes three long, slow breathes, feeling in the air that she has something to say. And he's right, she does. But he has to prod it out of her, as per the usual. "If you really needed my help, Beckett, then why are you so adamant about not accepting it?"

Her teeth clamp down on the inside of her lip at his question. And for him, it's time she pry just an ounce of honesty out of herself. "When Willaims' lawyer called me a... hot-headed rookie detective with a chip on her shoulder," she painfully recalls Vernon's words spat in her face in the courtroom just that morning, and it earns her Castle's eyes. She ends the thought with a short sigh and a crane of her neck, looking down to the floor.

Something about this is difficult for her to say. And Vernon, finding out that he said that about her, something about imagining him saying it makes him want to take her in his arms and tell her that he was wrong. And when she looks back up at him after a long few seconds, he sees the tremble in her eyes and he knows that it's a rare moment of baring her soul to him.

"I built my entire career on this case, Castle. When I put Williams behind bars, they..." she looks away to keep her eyes from letting the tears fall, "they called me a hero, for putting the honeymoon killer away. They started saying I was going to 'go down in history'... as the detective who put away a violent serial killer on her first try. And if..." she has to stop, looking back down and hiding her face behind her hair, "if it's true and Willaims really is innocent... then my whole life was built on putting an innocent man in prison."

When she finally works up the nerve to flip her hair back, she finds a blurry vision of him facing her, standing at the corner of the table just a few feet away from her. Frustrated with her emotions, she digs the heel of her palm into her eye and clears her eye, not caring if it should smear her makeup.

And it's a hard sight to see. It's easier to be angry with her when he thinks she'll just shrug it all off until later as she always does. But seeing her in pain, teetering on the edge of her own willpower, it's enough to test his resolve, that's for sure. And it's enough to soften him up to her. So, with a sigh, he relaxes his shoulders and shuffles forward.

"Beckett," he sighs, "I have a lot of criticisms I can make about you right now, knowing the situation we're in."

Her throat shakes and shutters at his words, that edge of anger still very present, always reminding her of all the mistakes she's made. And when he takes his pause, the feeling of just wanting to curl up in a ball and cry her eyes out comes back full force. She can't do that, because the only thing that would make her regain her usual strength and resiliency is standing four feet away from her criticizing her.

"But one thing I could never say," he starts again, his tone shifting into soft seriousness, "is that you weren't meant to do this."

With that, her emotions are enough to make his simple statement the most meaningful thing he's said to her since that humid early spring day, lying in the dry grass with his hand holding her head.

"If Williams is guilty, we'll prove it and keep him in prison. If not, we'll find out who the real killer is." He states simply and starts toward the door.

Beckett's heart is aching, too painful to let it go. And as he passes her, she's turning with him, hurting to keep him here with her to let him in on the rest of her mistakes. "Rick..."

But he's pulling open the door and rushing out before she can continue, and she can tell by the sound of the blinds on the door clattering against the window that he didn't hear her. When she regains a bit of her senses, she sees him extending his hand out to a short, bald, bearded man with thick glasses and a brown, wool suit jacket. Beckett closes her eyes for a moment, imagining all the tender moments she's played over in her head when she's alone in her apartment, when they're to the point when it's just 'Rick' and 'Kate'.

Out in the bullpen, Castle is happy to get his mind on something else as he greets his friend. "Thanks for coming so quickly Professor Weatherill." He says with a smile, shaking the man's hand firmly.

Peter smiles in return, shaking Castle's hand vigorously. "Any time, Rick, any time."

With a quick look over his shoulder, Castle sees Beckett slowly coming out of the conference room and motions toward the professor. "Beckett, this is Professor Peter Weatherill. He's the leading fingerprints expert in New York."

Feeling empty, Beckett extends a weak hand and greets him. "Nice to meet you."

"You too, Detective Beckett."

"So, what can you tell us, Professor?" Castle asks as he turns to face the man again. "I know partial prints can sometimes give false positives."

With a set of papers in his hand, Peter motions towards Beckett's desk. "May I?" He asks, and after receiving silent permission from Beckett, he sits down, adjusts his glasses and takes out a pen. "Well, Rick, you're right. Partial prints are sometimes unreliable and do gives false positives, but in this case, I'm quite certain that this print does indeed belong to your suspect."

"How can you be certain?" Beckett asks, crossing her arms and coming to stand behind the professor, while Castle stands in front of her desk.

"Well, because of this," he answers and points the tip of his pen to the center of the large print out of the fingerprint, the pen pointing to a small set of ridges in the print itself. "From the partial print found on your victim, it's clear that your killer has a very rare type of fingerprint we call an Accidental Whorl."

"And Williams has one of these?" Castle asks.

With another sheet of paper set on top of the other, the professor puts his pen on the outline of Williams' full print. "He certainly does. Right index."

"Professor," Beckett starts and waits until he's looking up at her, "just how rare is this type of fingerprint, exactly?"

The professor chuckles slightly and pushes the chair out, leaning back. "Well, from the statistics, there would only be a handful of people in New York who would have this fingerprint."

"And," Castle begins, chancing a quick glance over to her before leaning down on his fists, "just how big is a handful, Professor Weatherill?"

The professor puckers his lips and lets out a breath. "A few hundred, maybe?"

 _Another dead end,_ Beckett thinks to herself as she slowly turns away from him and paces her way back toward the conference room. "Thank you for your time, professor. Poker next Friday?"

The professor stands up and shakes Castle's hand again. "I'll be there, Rick."

Once he's left, Castle shoves his hands back into his pockets and starts to follow her. "A rare fingerprint type could point to it being Williams."

"And it could point to it being any of the other few hundred people with that type of fingerprint, Castle." She mutters to him and pushes the conference room door open.

"Well, if Williams is guilty, we should figure out if he could be responsible for the other two couples' murder. Start checking his history and see if it lines up somehow."

Beckett is slowly pacing around to the other side of the table when he's making his way back up to the murder board again and starting to look over the details. "Castle," She calls, picking up a case file from the table to make it a distraction while he looks over to her again. Once she feels his eyes on her, she tells him. "Thank you."

Her tone is soft, softer than usual when she says it in passing. She's in a weird place right now, she probably just needs a level head around. "We should get started."

* * *

 _A/N: Didn't plan it this way, but it's my birthday today. You can get me a cool gift by letting me know what you think. I had intended to make this chapter end later in the story, but it ran much longer than I thought it would. Next chapter will have an important scene in it, though. :)_


	8. Chapter 8

The task, daunting as it seems laid out on the large table in the conference room, seems welcomed to Beckett and Castle both. They've tested the waters with each other at times today, and seemingly, both of them are unwilling to take the plunge. It's rounding three o'clock in the afternoon by the time they settle back into the conference room with Ryan and Esposito coming back in, silently look between each other for the all-clear from Mom and Dad that they can get to work.

Castle is getting antsy to get down to the actual case. He needs some background. His few minutes talking to Williams wasn't enough to tell if he's capable of something like this... whatever this is. The MO still doesn't make much sense in his mind. And as he meanders quickly away from Beckett and toward the murder board, he looks over the pictures of the couple's bodies clipped in succession in the corner, with the dates the bodies were found written right below them.

Beckett watches him closely as she paces around the back of the table with her arms crossed. She's getting tired and feeling more and more emotionally drained as the afternoon wore on. Looking at the slew of papers and bags on the table, it would be too much to just dive into alone. But Castle's only interest seems to be ending this quickly.

It's wanting to end this case quickly that got her into this situation in the first place.

"Not much else we didn't already know on Williams' story. His original claim was that he asked them to leave, but his coworker told police that it got heated and he shoved Michael Garret." Ryan explains as he comes to stand next to Castle, looking over the board.

"I'm willing to bet Williams is lying." Esposito chimes in from the corner of the table, smoothing down his badge around his neck. "He thought his wife was stepping out on him, I'd be pretty mad too."

"But mad enough to kidnap three happily engaged couples, hold them captive for three days, torture them, kill them, then dump their bodies in the street?" Ryan asks him, looking back to his partner over his shoulder. Castle looks over to him, nodding slightly in agreement. The brief quip trade between these two reminds him just how much he enjoys being here. Ryan being the little brother figure he always wanted growing up and Esposito being the rival cousin that's always trying to one-up him.

He's not quite sure it's worth the trade-off Beckett brings. Ever since he discovered the truth, he can only see her in the light her constant lying shows her in.

Beckett is quick to take her place back as lead detective. "For now," she says from the corner of the room, gaining the eyes of her detectives, but not Castle, who just keeps staring at the murder board, "we need to find what connects the three victims and if Williams has anything to do with it. So, start from the beginning." She orders with a wave of her hand.

Ryan nods and steps around Castle and knocks his pen against the first picture. "First couple was Joel Sydney and Cally Chapman. They went missing after celebrating their engagement with a group of friends. Three days later, their bodies were found dumped in an alley on the opposite side of town from where they went missing. Both shot in the back of the head and showed signs of shock torture. No witnesses, no leads, case went cold."

It's then that Esposito steps up next to his partner and turns around, looking to Castle who's heavily interested in finally hearing the story. Beckett watches from the corner, her eyes not leaving the man she sought out. She loves watching him get excited about a case, seeing the lights start to sparkle with giddiness at the possibilities of what could have happened.

"Six months later, Bett Daniels and Drew Wolf were reported missing, having last been seen leaving a bar in Midtown, where they were with a group of friends from college, celebrating their recent engagement. Three days later, their bodies were found dumped in the park. The case got reopened but went nowhere. Still, no witnesses and no leads. Media dubbed the killer 'the honeymoon killer' because of his killing recently engaged couples. Made a show of it."

"One year later, Sheela Watson and Michael Garrett were found in a playground in Long Island, same MO." Ryan continues. "Luckily, there was evidence left behind in a partial fingerprint on Garrett's shirt sleeve. Beckett ran with it and matched it to Williams."

"Did he have a record?" Castle asks.

"Stalking." Beckett answers him. Castle turns at the sudden sound of her voice, surprised to see her eyes looking straight into him, her arms crossed and entire demeanor saying to him that she knows the entire world is breathing down her neck; slumped forward slightly, arms crossed, brow straight and hard, looking stiff only to keep herself upright.

"An ex-girlfriend had a restraining order put on him after she told police she was starting to get threatening phone calls after she broke up with him. Police arrested him after he violated it, but the charges were dropped later on. His prints were still on record." Esposito explains.

Castle lets the details about Williams go in one ear and out the other as he looks closer at the pictures of the couples lined up on the board. He has doubts about Williams, but he doesn't want to jump the gun in calling him innocent. One thing he's learned first hand is that in cases like this, things are never as they seem.

"I had a uniform pick him up and had him brought in." Beckett tells the room, recalling in perfect detail the torture of the anxiety she felt going into her first interrogation. "He showed a history of possible violence, made clear threats to his wife's supposed lover, and his prints placed him with one of the victims, so... I made the arrest."

"And the killings stopped." Esposito points out, motioning to her out of support. "Come on, we've seen this before." He says, leaning to one side as he looks between Ryan and Castle. "This is Tyson all over again."

"And there was no other connection between the victims besides them being engaged?" Castle asks, shaking his head and looking at Ryan.

"Nope." He answers, tucking in the corners of his mouth and knocking the spine of the file in his hand in his palm. "All were last seen in different bars in different parts of the city, all dumped in opposite parts of the city, nowhere near where they lived. It all seems random. Montgomery even looked for connections in the wedding vendors they looked into, ring dealers... nothing ever panned out."

"Hmm," Castle hums as he continues to look at the pictures and steps up to the murder board.

The room is completely still for a solid thirty seconds as he stares, squinting at the pictures of the victims, unaware that all three sets of eyes are on him, Beckett watching and praying the hardest. When Castle's eyes flit between the second and third couple again, his hand comes out of his pocket and reaches up, grabbing the clipped picture of the third couple and sliding it over, leaving a gap between the second and third couple. Castle's hand hangs in mid-air afterward.

And Beckett is lost. "Why'd you do that?" She asks him, still being separated by the entire room.

"I've no idea." He mutters to himself, still squinting at the pictures. After another moment, Ryan looking cock-browed at the murder board, Castle turns around and faces the three detectives. "Why was there such a big gap between the second and third set of victims?"

She feels he's asking an obvious question. "Castle," she chuckles, thinking he's thinking something completely dumbfounded, "serial killers often leave gaps in between killings."

"I'm aware of that, but don't the gaps usually get _smaller_ as the killer devolves? He disappears for six months before killing a second time, then another _year_ before killing a third time?"

Her face falls as she realizes why he slid the third picture. "Castle, are you saying that you think there's _another_ couple somewhere out there that he killed?!" She demands of him an answer he doesn't have, taking a step forward and uncrossing her arms.

"I don't think that's likely, Beckett." Ryan says, opening the file in his hand. "I mean, all the couples were left in relatively public places. First couple was left in an alley a few feet away from a bus stop, second was left just off a popular jogging trail."

"Maybe the missing couple was special, personal even." Castle theorizes.

"Can we _please_ keep the 'missing couple theory' tabled for now?" Beckett demands, stopping him from taking off with another wild theory as he always does. "And just focus on the evidence we actually _do_ have?" She rhetorically asks the three of them, motioning to the table in front of her.

But Castle, his insides are getting torn apart by impatience and anger again. She came to him, saying she needed his help, and even now, all she's done is throw it all back in his face. He's trying to help, he's trying to piece things together. She can never just accept his help, can she? She always has to be the one to get the answers. He can't bother dwelling on yet another facet of their partnership he's questioning right now. There are still too many missing pieces he needs to find. This whole thing isn't making any sense, even if Williams is the real killer.

Ryan and Esposito both silently agree to keep the theory tabled and look down to the table and each takes a seat, Ryan in the middle facing the window and Espo across from him. Castle takes the farthest seat away from Beckett he can manage without being in another room entirely and sits in the far corner facing the bullpen, with Beckett in the opposite corner. "So, the couples must have been targeted somehow." Beckett starts. "If we can find what connects them, we can nail down how Williams targeted them in the first place."

Castle sighs heavily as he leans down on his forearms. "All three couples went missing after going out to celebrate right?"

"As far as we know." Ryan answers.

"Well, what do people usually do when they celebrate something like an engagement?" Castle asks, leading the detectives to an end he's already come up with.

"They..." Beckett starts, making guess after guess in her head, "make toasts? They drink? What are you getting at, Castle?"

"Drink to excess, maybe?"

Ryan chuckles to himself, "I know Jenny and I did."

"And what do people do when they drink too much to get home on their own?" Castle asks Ryan with a sly smile.

"They-" Beckett cuts herself off, her mind finally clicking into place what her partner couldn't have just said, "they call a cab."

He gives her a slight knowing look for a split second before looking away. She's too quick to busy herself grasping for files to notice the unwillingness oozing out of him to even look at her.

"Wait," Esposito lifts a hand next to him, "are you saying Williams had an accomplice?"

"I'm saying that unless their homes showed signs of a break-in, I can't come up with any better ideas to how they were kidnapped." Castle answers.

Beckett's hands fly to grab up the file that holds the first victim's financial records, quickly flipping haphazardly through papers to find what she's looking for. "Financial records of both Joel Sydney and Cally Chapman don't show they paid for a cab, but they paid for their drinks with a credit card."

After another minute of Castle listening to the rustle of paper and sight of intense looks, Espo answers the question all of them are silently asking. "Same for Bett Daniels and Drew Wolf. Paid with a credit card at the bar, no sign of cab fare."

"Looks like we have our connection." Castle boasts, mainly to himself as he leans back and straightens out his back and smirks. "And here I thought you guys kept me around for free Knicks tickets." He says to the boys.

* * *

The night descended them quickly.

They started pouring over the long list of cabbies with a violent background, looking for any connection to Williams, pouring through Williams entire life, looking for signs of an accomplice of any kind, but so far coming up empty. Ryan was the first to take off, eager to get back to the honeymoon phase he and Jenny are still enjoying. Espo stayed for another hour after that before taking off for the night, now leaving just Castle and Beckett.

He was afraid of this whenever they started pouring through records. That he would eventually be left alone with her. He didn't want to be the first one to leave, and he was hoping that Esposito would say something about being hungry, thus sparking the topic of food. He's starving. The only thing he had all day was scotch. And right about now, a stiff drink sounds like heaven. And he knows Beckett all too well when it comes to it. He's had to trick her into eating before during cases, sometimes force her upon threat of being more annoying.

But now, she's just sitting on the other end of the table, silently going through old records, same as him.

And in truth, it would be at this time in the evening and in this stage of the case, right around six thirty the evening of a case, when he'd offer up taking her out to dinner or ordering in to eat over case theory in the breakroom. She could really go for some good Chinese. She has to physically stop herself from smiling, very prone to daydreaming about just sitting in her apartment with him, away from the loft so it can be just the two of them, both of them in some comfy clothes, tangled up together on her couch, lovingly bickering over different boxes of take-out.

When she snaps herself out of that daydream she fell into the trap of again, she looks over to him. He hasn't said a word since Espo left an hour and a half ago. Having him around again, him being here offering up theories and questions, her mind tries and fails to really fathom what this is to him. She can't imagine him not being a part of this precinct. Even his missing couple theory, it made some sense, and she's sure that it's one of the things that's going to prevent her from sleeping tonight.

But this... he's here helping, but how serious was he when he said that this was his last time? She can feel her heart getting ready to shutter inside her chest as she forms the words on her tongue. "So, this is really your last case?"

For once, he was content with the silence. But he can't brush her off and pretend he didn't hear that. And unlike her, he has to be honest about it. "Yep." He wants to continue, but everything that comes to mind would just make their already fragile partnership degenerate completely.

And for her, his statement is plain and simple. He hasn't even had second thoughts, has he. "Why?" She asks, a softness of desperation sneaking into her tone.

Both of them are still pretending to look over files, and Castle is keeping up the act before he gives her an answer and opens up another file. "I told you this morning, I have to move on."

Move on... all her work, all her patience, the effort she made to get to that place, and he's moving on.

He doesn't want to have this conversation... but the words are just too strong to keep inside anymore. "I have to move on so I can find someone who can't lie to me so easily."

It hurts, the dagger he just stuck her with, but a part of her feels it's worth it, that maybe if she just endures this pain, she can get to where she can explain. "I didn't want to lie to you, Castle." She murmurs.

"Sure didn't want to tell me the truth." He jabs back, still not looking at her.

"I asked you to wait for me, Castle. Until I could-"

"You told me to back off, is what you told me."

Beckett slaps the file in her hands down on the table at that, finally getting the nerve to look over to him. "That's _not_ what I said, Castle."

"Beckett, if you remembered what I said that day all this time, then _clearly_ we weren't waiting for the same thing." He spits at her, chancing a quick angry glare over the file in his hand before looking back down.

"Castle, I was ready." She finally says, feeling it start to all come out. "You probably don't realize this, but I _wanted_ us to be together." She says loudly as she pleads to him from across the table.

"And I _loved_ you!" He practically shouts.

His words slam into her like a freight train. And in the quickly formed wall of silence that falls between then as he glares are her, finally giving her a set of eyes she didn't want, she can't tell what's more frightening. The fact that he finally told her his feelings in a normal setting... or the fact that he used a past tense.

And he can tell she's stunned, just looking at him with wide open eyes and her face void of any expression. She still can't accept what that really means, can she? Castle just bitterly chuckles to himself as he sets the file down on the table and leans down on his arms, clasping his hands together as he leans forward.

"You know, it's not that you lied to me at the hospital. You had just been shot, do you really think I wouldn't have understood? And trust me, I realize that I chose the absolute _worst_ time in your life to tell you how I felt, but..." He trails off, looking away from her still shocked expression and shaking his head, "that's not why, Beckett. It's because every day, I would come in here," he continues, waving out to the bullpen, "you would look me _straight_ in the eye, and you would lie to me. To someone you supposedly care about, no less. So no, it doesn't matter that you never meant to hurt me because you've had a thousand and one chances to tell me the truth, but you never did. I had to hear it accidentally. So it doesn't matter that you wanted to be together. I have to move on because I don't want to be with someone who can lie to me so easily."

She feels the heat from her tears running down her cheeks in small, painful strains, but doesn't care. And all she can do is watch as he clenches his teeth and looks back down to the file again. After blinking hotly, the emotion stinging her eyes, she looks away from him. "Would it mean anything if I said I was sorry?"

"It would... if I actually believed you were." With that, her eyes drift shut and she can do nothing but feel the pieces of her heart hit the floor of her stomach. And being far too frustrated to stand being here any longer, he chooses not to come up with excuses. "You know what? We're not getting anywhere with these cabbies and I want to see my daughter before she goes to bed, so I'm going home."

As Castle quickly shoves his chair out from under him and grabs his sportcoat off the back, making for the door, Beckett's blood snaps with a flare of anger. And she can't keep it contained as he rounds the table on his way out. "Castle."

He stops with his hand just reaching for the doorknob. A weakness with him to give her the benefit of the doubt, he can't just storm out, he has to stay here and feed her need to have the last word.

She looks up at him with a seriousness in her stare. "If you don't want to forgive me, _fine."_ She spits at him. "But don't you _dare_ say that I don't care about you."

* * *

 _A/N: Thanks for all the birthday wishes. You guys rock so hard. So, what'd ya think! :D_


	9. Chapter 9

It only takes him a few blinks to get himself wide awake. Just a few minutes before his alarm was set to go off. He hasn't had to use an alarm since college, always awake just a few minutes before seven fifteen.

He's still tired, but Alexis was up in her room and had already eaten dinner by the time he had gotten home, so he wasn't able to coax her out of her room. But he's eager to see his little girl this morning, and even more eager to make his family breakfast, eager to do something for people special to him that actually love him. The word duel between him and Beckett the night before has left him filled with an old sense of self-confidence that he has been in desperate need of the past two weeks.

His old self would have abandoned all reason and ethics once he had heard from her that she wanted to be with him. If he hadn't been so upset with her at the time, he might have given in. But with being around her serving nothing else than as a constant reminder of how little she thinks of his feelings, his resentment gave him just the suit of armor he needed to get the words out to her.

It's still hard to mull over in his head, too many voices in an angry debate hall over what he's supposed to do. But he tries to drown them out by standing in the shower for his usual ten minutes and going over a new set of dialogue he's had to play around with before sending a finalized manuscript off to Gina, and then loudly brushing his teeth before throwing on a pale blue-white pinstriped button-up, the fabric thin and breathable in the beginning of the New York summer.

He's tucking in the back of the shirt by the time he's fully dressed and walking out into the kitchen at five past seven-thirty, seeing his mother already in a stool at the island with the front page of the paper in her hand and a cup of coffee. "Morning, mother."

"Ah," Martha breathes with a smile as she swivels in her stool to revel happily in the fact that she gets to greet a presentable version of her son for a change. "Why, good morning, Darling." She says and follows him with her eyes as he makes his way over to the coffee pot and grabs a mug from the counter.

"Alexis been down yet?" He asks, putting a spoonful of creamer and sugar into the bottom of the mug and pouring the coffee over it.

"Not yet, but she should be down any minute. I heard her getting ready not too long ago." Richard is taking the first sip from his mug as he's making his way over to the fridge, quickly reaching for a package of bacon. Haphazardly, he tosses the bacon onto the counter before reaching for the eggs, grabbing the butter with two fingers. "Nice to see my son is up and about for a change." Martha quips behind her own coffee mug.

Rick is turning on the stove in front of him and grabbing a rubber spatula from the drawer on the left as he looks up over the island to his mother, as if not understanding what she means. He does, just doesn't want to play into her drawing lines between him getting dragged into a case by Beckett yesterday and this being the first morning he's gone about a normal morning routine in over two weeks, since last he was getting dragged into cases by her. "What do you mean?"

"Nothing, dear," Martha waves her hand and plays innocent with her brow, "I'm just pleased to see you're back to having a regular breakfast as opposed to... well, scotch."

His seriousness, his masculine need to shore up and bury it all is clicked on in an instant as he hardens his lips, his brow, and his shoulders, and plays the first strip of bacon down across the griddle. "I was in a bit of a funk, so what?"

Martha takes another small sip of her coffee and decides to let him bury it, for now. "Whatever name it goes by, I am glad you are out of it. And Alexis will be too. You know, your daughter's been worried about you, Richard."

"Is that your way of saying she's not the only one?" He asks his mother as he finishes laying out the bacon on the top half of the griddle, not bothering to look up at her.

"Not that I haven't lived through enough of your break-ups and divorces, dear, but I know you well enough to know that while it may get thrown off, your heart's compass will always find its way back to true north." It's then that Martha leans forward in her stool and over the counter, forcing her son to give her his eye line. "Beckett... or no Beckett."

He ends the conversation, letting her have the last word as always, with a small sigh as he flips open the carton of eggs. Luckily, he hears the familiar sound of his little girl's shoes coming down the stairs. At the sound, he looks over with a lift coming into his heart at the sight of his daughter, her smile bright and her eyes sparkling.

"Hi, Dad." Alexis says to her father happily, a set of papers in her hand.

With his mind briefly wandering back to the time when this little girl would come slumping down the stairs in her PJ's, rubbing her sleepy eyes and saying those words in an adorably innocent five-year-old voice, Rick opens his side to her with a smile. Alexis smiles, happy to see her dad back to normal after these last few weeks, and sets the papers down on the counter and wraps her arms around his chest, giving him a loving hug.

"Morning, sweetie." He says as he wraps his daughter tightly into his side. "Want some breakfast?"

Not wanting to say no to him for fear it might send him right back to where he was yesterday, she gives her father's midsection a squeeze before resting herself into his side. "Sure."

"Good," He says as he turns the bacon over with a fork.

"Oh, by the way," Alexis says and reaches over to the set of papers she brought down and presents them to him, "they gave us our tickets for graduation. These are for you and Gram."

"T-minus?" He asks her as he takes the papers from her.

"Four days."

He nods and sets the papers on the opposite of the counter and continues to cook, the tickets quickly being grabbed up by his mother. "Can you believe it? In just four days, my little girl will be graduating, _top_ of her class." He brags out loud. "And to think that it was only yesterday, you were that same little girl in those adorable pigtails, asking me for help on your sixth-grade history report."

Remembering that time from her childhood when it was just the two of them, a time she, to this day, holds very close to her heart, her head lifts off her dad's shoulder. "You mean my report on the Titanic?"

A sly, hinting at proud smile sneaks onto his face as he starts cracking eggs onto the griddle.

"Dad, I asked you to spell check my book report and you ended up calling a resident historian who was actually on a dive to the wreck."

"Did you or did you _not_ get an A?" He defends himself, getting a half-amused smile from Alexis. "Besides, you can't blame me. My only daughter is growing up!" He says, shaking her softly by the shoulder.

After a small giggle, she reaches for a strip of bacon he had just taken off the griddle. "Come on, Dad, you know it had to happen sometime, right?"

"Nope," He answers quickly, shutting off the griddle after everything is hot and cooked, then proceeds to wrap his daughter up in a hug with both arms. "It's easier just to deny reality and pretend you're still that pigtailed little girl of mine."

Alexis laughs despite herself, eats quickly and grabs her things for school. "Love you, Dad."

Still smiling the first honest smile he's felt in weeks, he lifts his hand to wave his daughter goodbye. "Love you too, sweetie."

Once the door is closed and silence envelops the loft, Martha knows it's her chance to sneak past his defenses. Bless that girl for working her wonders on him. "So?" She begins as her son starts to gather the dishes. "How's Beckett?"

Not looking back to his mother, he sets the dishes in the sink for later and pours himself another cup of coffee. "She's Beckett, so she's fine. Why?"

"Well, I haven't seen a smile on your face like that since last you worked a case with her, so-"

"Am I _not_ allowed to be happy to see my daughter without my mother drawing conclusions?" He asks angrily.

At least it's a sign his defenses aren't up yet. "I'm just _talking,_ Richard." She urges him, lifting her hands to slow him down. "Did you at least talk to her or was it strictly professional?"

"Despite my best efforts, yes, we did talk." But he stops with his cup to his lips. "Well, _I_ talked and she tried to justify herself."

She gives him a moment before continuing. "And... how is that?"

After a long sigh, Rick sets his mug down and leans against his hands. "She tried to tell me that she was ready and that she didn't mean to lie to me, and I told her that it doesn't matter because I have to move on. I told her that I don't want to be with someone who can lie to me that easily and for that long."

"And..." Martha cautions, "that's really what you want?"

Rick's eyes roll heavily as he shifts his weight. "It's what I _need,_ okay?"

"Richard..."

"I didn't just put my heart into her, okay, mother?" He stops her again, a burst of honesty coming out of him. "I put who I am into getting that woman to notice me. I changed fundamental things about myself in an effort to get her to see that I could be that man for her. I wanted a _life_ with her. I pictured us starting a family one day. But... if she knew all this time how I really felt about her and could look me in the eye and pretend like it never happened, then that tells me that it meant nothing to her. And if it meant nothing to her, then that means I'm not nearly as important to her as I thought I was, so... I'm done trying to be something she clearly doesn't want. I have to move on."

He didn't want to end up feeling like this, so beaten down and empty this early, but knew it's probably better to start off early knowing it's going to end up happening with her sooner or later.

"Richard," she tries again, "I understand you're heartbroken, and I'm not saying your anger isn't justified." She prefaces with a lift of her hand, "But you wouldn't have agreed to help her if some part of you didn't think you could work it out with her."

With another heavy sigh, he hangs his head and leans against the island. "I never said I wasn't still in love with her. Just... don't want to be."

"So..." Martha starts again, very cautious about the next topic, "if you truly plan on ending it, does that mean you're going to tell her?"

Rick eyes his mother with a craned neck, not knowing entirely what she means. "Tell her what?" But he knows with a few slow seconds what she means by the knowing look in her eyes. And when he realizes it, his muscles harden with nervousness and he pushes himself away from the counter. "That's different, mother."

"I'm just saying, Richard, if you truly intend to move on, then why should you be responsible for watching her for this-this Smith character?"

"Because it's _different,_ okay? I lied to her because I wasn't given a choice. And I was planning on telling her once I thought there was something more important in her life. The only problem is that day never came and never will."

"Then, Richard, why should you-"

But Rick is rushing out the door without grabbing a coat as he cuts her off. "Just because I'll never be that important to her doesn't mean I want her to die in my arms again."

With that, the door slams shut.

* * *

Beckett stands in the doorway of her bedroom, still as she looks at the toss and messiness of her bedsheets.

She sighs heavily as a chill starts to crawl into her veins. It's been getting more and more familiar, but at the same time, she can never get used to it. There's a love that's supposed to be here, she was supposed to have it by now, she worked for it and strived for it, for him, but after all that, all her work she did to tear down that wall all just to let him in so there wouldn't be anything standing in the way of them, it's all as useless as those bedsheets are in getting rid of this chill.

But even in the light of the early morning shining through her bedroom curtains, standing in the doorway of her bedroom, something still makes it feel like home. And she can feel him, she always can. She senses him, everything about him, his warmth and his touch, just inches away. Her eyes drift shut as she feels his hands slide against her sides, going around to her front and his arms enveloping her in their strength. Her body melts at the same time it comes alive with euphoric jitters as her head tilts off to the side at the feeling of his nose and his lips searching for her ear and her neck under the veil of her hair.

He squeezes her tightly as he feathers her sensitive skin on the column of her neck with his silky soft lips. Her hand reaches up and she runs her fingers into his hair, massaging his scalp with her nails. "Hello, my love." She sighs.

He hums as his hands sneak under the loose fabric of her shirt. "How long has it been since I kissed you?" He says against her neck.

She breathes a loose chuckle, "Too long, Rick." She says to him and spins herself around in his arms, hanging her arms from his shoulders. "Far too long."

"I'm going to blame you for that." He smirks just before he leans down and captures her lips, making every muscle in her body tighten with excitement at the meer taste of his lips. She can never forget the feel of his lips.

She hugs herself as close to him as she can by squeezing his neck with her arms, feeling her feet lift off the ground as he tightens his own arms around her midsection. Nuzzling her nose against his, she speaks, her heart pouring out and aching to be close to him. "Tell me you love me, Castle."

"Do I?" He asks.

She pulls back, seeing a blankness clouding his eyes suddenly. "Of course, you do. I-I mean," she panics, "you know I love you, right? You know that."

But as her toes touch the floor, the same blankness covering his face as he stares at her, her heart starts breaking.

"You do know that, don't you? Rick, you have to know I love you." She begs him and cups his face. But when he doesn't respond, she panics, even more, doing the only thing she can. "Kiss me, Castle. I want you to kiss me."

When he lets her pull him down to her lips and she feels that same incredible satin of his lips press against her, she is only stopped by an annoying, incessant beeping. Her hands weave into his hair again as she deepens the kiss, but it only gets louder. "What the hell is that sound?"

* * *

Her eyes pop open and her ears hear the sound of her alarm going off next to her on her nightstand.

But with her body still crawling with excitement and her lips still buzzing and tingling from his kiss, she looks over, seeing nothing but an empty space next to her in bed. And when she realizes what she just had happen to her and why her alarm is going off, her head falls back into her pillow with a heavy drag of angry frustration.

"Son of a bitch..." She moans and slaps her hand against the alarm clock to shut it up. "Why does it always have to be a dream?"

* * *

 _A/N(Update): To clearify, it was kind of implied that Castle silently walked out at the end of the last chapter. I didn't add that part in because I felt that since he was already getting up, told her he was leaving, and was at the door, that that was the end of it. Sorry if I confused anybody._


	10. Chapter 10

_A/N: Sorry for the long wait. Forgive me, maybe? :D_

* * *

She's lucky enough in that she's able to do paperwork while letting her mind wander. All-star at the academy basically meant she did paperwork the best, but she accepted the mantle of best in her class anyway, not really caring for the bragging rights or pride that came along with it.

If they stick to his normal schedule, he's due to arrive any minute. She keeps glancing to her left, at the chair that still sits next to her desk. And sitting here, neck deep in paperwork makes her miss his soft, baby-blue, dare she think it... loving gaze on her as she does something menial as fill out expense reports and evidence logs. She used to call it annoying until he told her what that gaze really was last summer. Then she saw it in a new light. That he wasn't staring at her just to stare, it wasn't until then that she found herself fighting a smile and battling a quickening heart everytime she felt his eyes on her.

There's always parts of a dream like last night's that leave an impression. You can never remember the whole thing, most of the details fade, but the point never leaves you. She can't remember what he was wearing, or what she was wearing, whether her bed was made or when the dream exactly began, but she can remember clearly the dull and lifeless look in his eyes as she caressed him and asked him if he knew just how much she cared about him.

And the argument just before he left didn't help. Saying that she was lying to someone she _supposedly_ cared about. All this time, she thought she was making it clear that there's no one she cares about more in her life. Not even her father knows her as well as Castle does. He may be sober now, but the father-daughter dynamic was murdered between them the same time her mother was. There are times when she wishes that her father could have been more like her partner growing up. Castle's such an amazing father.

"Hey," she hears him say in a low tone from behind her as he makes his way up to her desk.

Instinctively, her left hand reaches up off her desk to grab the coffee he's offering to her, as he does every morning. But when she hears his footsteps come to a halt at the edge of her desk and feels nothing in her hand, she looks up to him and sees his hands in the pockets of his dark designer jeans. Something about it, him not bringing her coffee, it feels as if she was just stabbed in the heart. "Oh," she blurts as she closes her fist and lets it fall down to her lap. "Hey."

And Castle's not in the mood for small talk. His mother got him riled up enough. "So, where are we? Anything new on those cabbies?"

"U-uhm..." She stutters to correct herself emotionally and adjusts herself in her chair. "No... Gates wants us to try to come at it from another direction." She tells him and watches as he nods and looks away from her. With him giving her a chance to stare, she's given a chance to admire. The light pale blue, almost white of his button-up goes so well with the structure of his muscles, and the darker blue of the pinstripes brings out his eyes so well.

But after a moment, she waits for him to take his customary seat next to her. But he never does.

So, keeping to his obvious wishes, she keeps it about the work and little else. "I have Ryan and Esposito going over the latest victims, searching for any connections that could help us out." She starts and looks back down to her paperwork.

Castle sighs sternly, looking across the expanse of the bullpen with a rugged stoic that makes her stomach coil upon cautioning a glance back up at him. If there wasn't this canyon between them, she'd be complimenting him, just to see that devilish smirk he'd give her. But that's a can of worms she'd rather not open up, since just last night he had a yet another dream of kissing that devilish grin off his face again. Having to relive that grin would only serve as a reminder that she missed her chance to make that dream a reality.

After a moment of waiting for the silence to break itself, she speaks, wanting his insights. "What about you?" She asks, leaning forward on her desk and tapping her pen against her knuckle. He looks back down at her, his brow slightly raised and his eyes lidded. "Have any thoughts on the case?"

"Well, the MO still doesn't make much sense." He says on a sigh and plots himself down in his chair. It's only as he leans himself back that he has a chance to chastise himself for letting himself slip back into casualness. Things aren't supposed to be casual between them, they're supposed to be over. But he can feel her curious eyes, wanting to hear what he has to say, on him. He doesn't get it very often and notice it.

"What do you mean?" She asks.

"I mean," he tells her and looks away as he pulls one of his legs up on his knee, "torture, it's... when you torture someone, you're after one of two things: information or pain." He explains, finally looking over to her.

"Yeah," she explains, waving her pen in the air, "that's what we said. He was torturing couples to see them in pain."

"But a shot to the back of the head isn't painful." It's that that's been bugging him. You don't give someone that you want to see in pain a painless death, not in any book he's written, anyway. "That's what's been bugging me. Why go through all that torture to just kill them with a quick shot to the head? The only way it would make sense is if-"

"Is if he was after something." Beckett finishes for him.

"But what?"

"Well..." She starts and stands up, heading for the murder board, "none of the victims were especially high-profile. And they're financials were all clean, so if he was after money, he didn't get it." She says, turning back around and seeing her partner looking back at her, turned around in his chair.

"What about the missing couple?" Castle asks after a long few seconds of silence between them. Beckett answers his question by shifting her weight to one side, planting one hand on her hip and sending him a lidded glare. Castle is quick to defend himself. "I'm just saying that if there is another couple out there that you never found, it stands to reason that if the killer was after something, that this missing couple gave it to him."

"Well, until we know for certain that there was another couple out there, a missing couple is speculation at this point. Which is why our best shot is to stick to the victims we _do_ have." She explains and spins back around to stare at the murder board.

Nothing has changed between them. Times like this, he feels like nothing more than the court jester trying to tell the queen the truth. All he gets is a roll of the eye and a wave of her hand that he's not capable of being serious. There's a part of him that's telling him to just get up and walk out, force her to go it alone without her little coffee monkey at her back. But despite himself, he just gets up out of the chair and puts himself in front of her computer, opening up a search engine.

And at the murder board, Beckett is looking between the photos of the victims. Just a few years ago, she never saw herself getting married. She was willing to accept the fate of living for the job, and if an emotional void came along with it, so be it. She would have her job, and if it took her life, that's what she signed up for. But meeting Castle, seeing how happy his family makes him and what a great father and son he is, it's opened her heart up to the thought that maybe she deserves that after all. Maybe she could, after all, have someone by her side and wrap their arms around her at night.

Now, she'd give anything to be able to just lose herself in the warmth, love, and protection of his arms wrapped around her.

"Beckett," Castle's voice breaks her out of her dull aching thoughts. She turns and sees him looking worriedly at her computer screen. "How exactly did you find out that the victims were recently engaged?"

She shrugs and starts to meander back to her desk. "Family, friends, witness reports, why?"

"So... _not_ the newspaper?" He continues, looking over to her with a pinched brow.

"Castle, what are you getting at?"

His eyes turn back to the screen and his fingers clack against the keyboard in a speed that makes her jealous. "I Googled the names of the third couple and came across a wedding announcement made in the Post."

Her heart is squeezed and her blood is dosed with a rush of adrenaline as she rushes to his side, leaning down close to him and looking at the screen. She sees a picture of Sheela Watson and Michael Garrett, Michael holding her from behind and smiling. The next thing she sees is the date of the publication, and when she sees it, a cold flood of shock rocks through her veins. "Castle," She spurts loudly as her finger jabs into her screen, "this was published in the Post a day after Watson and Garrett were reported missing."

Castle is silent, trying his hardest to bolster up against the scent of her hair and the pull of her skin as she leans down this close to him. If he didn't know better, he'd say she was manipulating him by being this close. "I'm glad you noticed because I also found these." He tells her and pulls up the next two articles on the screen. "After I found the third victim, I searched for the others. All these were made during their disappearance, and..." he takes a pause and waits for her to see it, but when she looks at him, his breath is robbed from his lungs.

She's so close. Close enough he can feel her soft breath fanning off of him. "What?"

Castle swallows, mostly his pride, and looks back at the screen, pointing to the byline. "They were all written by the same person."

Her eyes fly like fire back to the screen, so much so that her hair flings as her head turns and she can feel it smack him softly in the face. "Reginald Lee."

When he hears the name out loud, the gears in his mind start to churn and ache. "Where have I heard that name before?"

Beckett is grabbing her things off her desk before she can give him a real answer. "It doesn't matter. We should get to their office downtown. Hopefully, they will still have employment records. Let's go, Castle."

The haste to make it to the elevator, leaving him to catch up, is made in a mad dash. This may finally be it. A chance to rectify one of her biggest mistakes. If Williams is innocent, this is a chance to get him back to his family and back to his life, to own up to her mistake and make it right, like so many other things she needs to do with her life. Admitting the mistakes was a hard enough step to make, a treacherous first step in a long, hard road. And she didn't think it could get any harder than that, that her pride, maybe even her arrogance, couldn't or wouldn't let her do it.

But she did it, admitted that she made a mistake like she has many over the years. Now, maybe that she was given a chance by the powers at be to make this mistake right, she will be given a chance to make the biggest mistake of her life right; pushing the man of her future away. Choosing something that represents her past over something that represents her future. Her case of her partner.

And as they step onto the elevator in tandem, she pushes the button for the carpool and lets the doors slide closed in front of them. With a quick glance to her right, she sees the unmistakable look of Castle's mind being completely immersed in the case, going back and forth, bouncing different theories off of himself to see which one sticks. She would never have gotten this far if not for that mind of his. She's always been proud of being able to think outside the proverbial box, but that box is still contained in that of being a cop. Castle's mind isn't restricted at all, he doesn't have any protocol to follow.

That's what makes him so amazing at what he does.

* * *

Traffic is light as they pass through Manhattan just after nine o'clock, and they make it to the Post's building in decent time.

Luckily, with the case having just been blown wide open, Castle is fortunate in that his consumed in theories and line-drawing. That name, Reginald Lee, is still wracking in his brain. He swears he has heard that name before. Beckett is leading the way through the main doors and into the lobby of the Post. It isn't until his eye is caught by a line of newspaper headlines, famous throughout the years of history, that his mind starts to click things into place.

The first is framed headline is of the first moon landing, the second is of the attack on Pearl Harbor, following the Allied invasion of Europe. Then, with the last frame against the wall, he stops. "Beckett!" He shouts.

Beckett stops, taking her eyes away from the line of receptionists some distance away. She turns and sees him rushing toward a frame of a news headline, displayed along the wall. "Castle?"

He jogs a few long paces over to the frame and jabs his finger into the frame of April 14th, 1912. "Alexis' sixth-grade book report!"

Her eyes, with a confused ark in her brow, flick between the newspaper and her partner, seeming overjoyed at such a random statement as if it explains everything. "On the... Titanic?"

Castle smiles, that certain prideful smile where he's proud of himself for accomplishing something and turns to her. "When Alexis asked me for help on her report, I made a few calls to a friend of mine, who was the resident historian on an expeditionary dive to the wreck of the Titanic. Got her an A-plus."

"Okay, that's great, Castle, but... what does this have to do with the case?"

"I remembered where I heard that name before."

"The name of the writer of the wedding announcements? What about it?"

"Beckett, one of the lookouts posted to the crows nest of the Titanic the night it sunk was one, Reginald Robinson Lee."

"Are you saying you think he used a fake name?"

"Well," he smiles and shrugs his shoulders, _"_ I don't exactly write under Richard Rodgers, do I?"

* * *

After going to the reception, Castle and Beckett are pointed down to the mail room. The foreman is a veteran of the company and remembers the name as a kid that was hired by the temp agency. But since they worked through a temp agency, which went out of business during the financial crash, they didn't keep any records. And when shown a picture of Ned Williams, the foreman told them he couldn't place it, but it might have been him. He didn't remember every single face that's passed through his mail room, especially one from ten years ago.

At the end of their conversation with him, Castle speaks up and asks to be pointed to the records room, going off of a hunch that if the real killer had worked for the newspaper as an aspiring writer/ mail boy, they might have kept records on any other articles he may have written. At the other end of the building, Castle and Beckett stand behind an older man working the records room and asks them for any articles written by Reginald Lee.

"Yep, here he is," the old man says to them as he pulls up a file. "Reginald Lee. No photo, it seems."

"Damn it," Beckett curses under her breath. "Can you tell us how many articles he submitted?"

"Uh..." he slurs as he works the computer, "yep, four. Small time work, it seems. They're all back page wedding announcements."

"Wait, _four?"_ Beckett stops him.

"Can you print them out, please?" Castle asks before she continues. The old man nods and goes to the other side of the room, grabbing the papers they asked for. " I was right, there was another couple out there somewhere."

"Here you are." The man says to them and hands Beckett four sheets of paper.

Without hesitation, she snatches out the third paper and looks it over. "Owen Bradley and Amy Benjamin." She says out loud as she's digging out her phone.

"The date fits the one year gap in the victims perfectly," Castle tells her, looking at the article and speed reading over it.

"Ryan, I need you to pull up anything you have on an Owen Bradley and Amy Benjamin."

 _"Hang on,"_ Ryan says.

"If we never found their bodies, that may mean this were the ones he was after."

" _Owen and Amy Bradley, still married and live out in Queens. Why?"_

Beckett's heart drops into her stomach as her body's muscles are gripped with tension. Her eyes turn widely up to her partner. "Send me the address, Ryan."

"What is it?"

Beckett lets her hand fall down to her side as she looks over at her partner. "You were right, Castle." She says, seeing the words having a disengaging effect on him. "Whoever this couple is, they must have given him what he wanted because they're still alive."

* * *

 _A/N: I was going to add the next scene in, but didn't want it to run too long. I know this chapter was mostly case work, but the next chapter will be more casketty. Let me know, though. :)_

 _A/N2: (update) To answer the many reviews I've gotten on the issue... yes, I know that Castle's secret is a bit of a hot button issue. But as a fanfiction writer, I have to work with the circumstances given to me, and try to tell the story with in the confines of those curcumstances. I don't much like it either, but I'm going to try to use it to the best of my ability to tell a fulfilling story. So stay tuned. :)_


	11. Chapter 11

The drive out to Queens takes a bit longer as they hit the start of the lunch rush. Beckett, with a mixture of illation and anxiety, is gripping and pulling at the steering wheel as she sits with no way to expel the rush of energy this latest break gave her. Castle is just as silent and reluctant to look away from the window as he was when he slumped into this car yesterday morning. She wishes that this distance could be distracted away from him, that she could catch him off guard for just a moment, seize the opening, and give him a reason not to be so eager to give up on her.

Maybe he wasn't as kidding as she thought he was last night. Maybe he really is moving on. Even if she does push past the walls around her heart and allow him in, would he want in? That's what she always banked on. That he'd be there when she was healed and ready. Because he loved her.

And he may have made it clear last night, that he did love her. Maybe he just loved the woman he thought wouldn't have lied to him the way she did. If he doesn't love her anymore, then she knows that she can only blame herself. He told her in three little words that she could have had a future that was worth something with him, that she could have been happy and didn't have to hide behind anything with him, but she let it slip away.

She remembers his words very clearly as he scolded her in a tone that he hasn't used with her in nearly a year. The last time he used that tone and was that brutally honest with her, she ended things between them, and she meant it... then. But now, it'd shatter her heart more than losing her mother if she heard herself say those words again to the man she cares about more than anyone else.

As she passes over the bridge, the car still completely silent save for the tires going over the pavement, an anger starts to simmer at the bottom of her chest... because she was sure that he knew that. He's so quick to make all those assumptions on how she feels and then uses it to justify not giving her a chance to earn his trust back? That kind of bull-headedness is something she'd only expect out of... well, herself.

"Beckett?" Castle breaks the nearly forty-minute long silence of the car.

And it's all she can do to keep herself from snapping and letting her anger get the better of her. She vents silently and grasps the steering wheel, looking over to him with a faux-casual brow. "What?" She chirps.

"Uh... you passed it." Castle points out to her with a thumb over his shoulder.

Rolling her eyes to herself and groaning, "ugh!", she jerks the wheel hard to the left and parks opposite of the address Ryan texted her. She shuts off the engine and jerks out the keys, obvious in her aggressive passive aggressiveness as she flips off her seat belt.

Castle is keen on her mannerisms and can feel the sudden shift in her mood and in the air between them. It shouldn't be his problem, least not anymore, how she does or doesn't feel. She never seemed to care one way or another unless it would get her in trouble with her superiors. And he really shouldn't poke that bear because most of the time, it's something he did. But as she stretches out her arm to reach her folder on the back seat, he decides to make the first move and simply step out of the car and look across the street toward the quaint, seemingly non-descript house for the area.

The killer wasn't after money if he targeted this middle-class couple.

As Beckett strides purposefully around the front of her car, Castle waits for her to catch up out of instinct, knowing she would find a way to put herself ahead of him if he did take off without her anyway. And when they match pace to cross the street together toward the front door of the light yellow, two-story house in the suburbs of Queens, a meager yet well-kept garden and lawn in the front with a few outside toys left out near the walkway, Castle is hesitant to ask.

"Something wrong?" He asks, keeping it as nonchalant as he can.

A tug of war goes on briefly in her chest, knowing he can read her so well that he knows something is wrong, but also knowing that she can't very well be honest with him when they're about to question a pair of potential key witnesses in one of the biggest cases in her career. "I'm fine." She tells him dishonestly as she steps up on the sidewalk.

He can tell it's both a lie and a tell saying he should just ask again later, if at all. "Is this because I didn't bring you coffee this morning?"

That makes the tug of war rage on into a full-scale battle. Every morning he's brought her a cup of coffee, just a little, simple reminder that he was thinking of her that morning and wanted to do something sweet for her, as if it's a simple good morning kiss between a happily married couple of many years. And this morning, with him showing up with nothing other than questions about the case, it's almost a testament to how much he doesn't want to fix things between them.

"It's fine, Castle. It's just coffee." She snowballs the lie.

Knowing what she's doing, he looks back down to the ground as she steps up to the door and knocks four times. After a minute of waiting, the door opens to a little blonde haired girl, her hair cut short with a small ponytail, a white t-shirt and a pair of pink denim shorts, standing a little taller than four feet, holding a large jar of peanut butter in one hand.

"Yeah?" The girl asks, not phased in the slightest by the sight of two adults at the door.

Beckett feels off, not used to dealing with kids with negotiating skills and the ability to judge her. Infants are easier in a way, but this little girl looks no older than nine. And if the stories she's heard from her dad hold any water, she was terrible at nine-years-old. Beckett casts a glance to her partner, hoping in little more than a prayer that some of his experience with raising children will rub off on her before she talks and sees him simply smiling softly down to the girl.

"Hi," Beckett starts awkwardly, looking back down to the still unphased blonde girl. "Uh... are your parents home?"

The girl blinks at her silently before spinning around on the ball of one barefoot, still holding the jar of peanut butter. "Daddy!" She calls through the house.

After a few more seconds, a man, standing well above six feet three comes out from around the corner, clad in a burgundy long sleeved t-shirt and jeans. "Who is it, bubby?"

"I don't know, some door to door salesmen or something." The girl says and lets her father pet her head as she passes him and turns the corner.

Castle smiles to himself, remembering how much he loved calling his little girl pumpkin, even to this day. Ever since she was just that wiggling little ball of energy he loved to play with, she was his little pumpkin. He misses being that father, though. He misses being the biggest person in her world, having that love a father can only get from his little girl.

"Can I help you?" The father asks as he rolls up his sleeves.

"Who's at the door, baby?" A woman's soft voice comes from the side. A few seconds later, she appears from the left, standing much shorter than her husband with a bright, natural smile, wearing a pair of jeans and a thin hoodie.

"I'm sorry to bother you," Beckett starts and unclips her badge, "but I'm Detective-"

"You're Richard Castle!" The woman smiles widely and points her finger at her partner. "Oh my god, Owen, it's Richard Castle!" She squeaks to her husband as she latches onto his arm and turns herself into his side, twirling a strand of hair around her finger and blushing.

"You mean the Punisher?" He asks as he looks over to him.

"That's Frank Castle." Castle and Beckett reply in perfect unison.

Her heart briefly skipping a beat, Beckett finally takes hold of her chance and flashes her badge. "Detective Kate Beckett, Richard Castle is my partner, and we were wondering if you could answer some questions for us."

Still latched onto her husband's arm, Amy stands back up straight and looks over to her. "Really?" She chuckles. "About what?"

"Who died?" Owen asks.

"Umm," Beckett stammers as she grabs the paper out of her folder. "Do you recognize this?" She asks the couple and shows them their wedding announcement.

Amy's face lights up with another smile as she sees the paper and points to it, "Aww look, baby, it's our wedding announcement."

But the man's brow pinches briefly before he looks down to his wife. "I didn't know we made a wedding announcement."

"So, you don't remember making a wedding announcement then?" Castle asks them.

They both shrug and look at each other for a second. "My parents might have. My mom was more excited about our wedding than we were." Amy says and leans her weight into her husband's side.

"This..." Beckett starts as she closes her folder and clasps it in front of her, "may sound odd, but uhm... have you two ever been..." She lets the words fall. This is ridiculous. Why would the honeymoon killer target these people?

Owen looks between the two of them and prods. "Been what?"

"Kidnapped." Castle finishes for her.

Once the word is out in the air, Beckett watches as Amy's smile fades quickly and she looks up to her husband with a glare. "I _told_ you it wasn't a prank."

Without another word, Amy turns away and starts back inside, clearly motioning to pinch her forehead as she goes. "U-um..." The husband is left alone in front of them, "please, come in."

Owen lets them in and closes the door behind them, quickly coming back around and lifting his arm to show them into the living room. As they follow his gesture, they see Amy already waiting for them on a love seat sitting across from a larger couch, a large blue mug in her lap. "Can I get you anything, Detective?" Amy asks as Beckett enters the room, standing up to meet her request.

"I'm fine, thanks." She answers and lifts her hand.

"Oh, look at this!" Castle says as he passes a table along the wall leading into the living room. He smirks and picks up the copy of Heat Rises off the table and waves it in her direction. "Looks like you have a fan, Beckett." He says with a waggle of his brow.

"O-oh, I..." Amy stammers, "I just love your books. The Heat series is my favorite."

"The movie kinda sucked." Owen states plainly as he comes to stand next to his wife.

" _Owen!"_ She softly scolds him.

"There were-" Castle starts, tucking his hands into his pockets and shrugging his shoulders, "creative differences. Let's leave it at that."

"So-" Beckett says and moves over to the couch, sitting down on the right end of the couch, leaving Castle to take the left, "you _were_ kidnapped?"

"Well, _kidnapped."_ Owen says with a smile and a chuckle to match, sitting down next to his wife. "Is that what they're calling getting too drunk and having a couple of frat guys haze you at your engagement party now?"

"Um..." Castle starts as he leans forward. "Can you tell us exactly what happened?"

"Well," Amy says, looking up to her husband and crossing her legs, "we had just gotten engaged about a week before and had gone out to celebrate with some friends from college."

"Yeah, we don't normally drink the hard liquor but we were celebrating." Owen adds.

"So, you were drinking pretty heavily then?" Beckett asks.

"The only thing I can remember clearly is my sister making a toast. After that, it gets kinda fuzzy and the next thing we know... we're waking up in this dark cellar strapped to some chairs facing each other."

With that, Beckett opens up her folder and grabs her pen, beginning to take notes. "Go on," Castle tells her.

"We were there for a while before this guy comes in, wearing a mask." She continues.

"Mmhmm," Owen nods, "Dearly beloved, we're gathered here today to put these two lovers to the test."

"I-I'm sorry?" Castle asks.

"That's what the guy said to us." Amy clarifies.

"What exactly did he do to you?" Beckett asks.

"He just... asked us a bunch of weird questions about our relationship and stuff." She answers.

"You know, have we ever cheated on each other, thought about cheating, lied, that kind of thing." Her husband continues.

"And... that's it?" Castle asks, slightly lost as to why these two are still alive. What did this guy want? Amy nods to him with a soft smile. "And then, after he was done with the questions, what happened?"

"I'm not sure." Owen continues. "The lights got shut off and we passed out. Next thing we know, we're waking up back at home."

"Can I ask you a question, Mr. and Mrs. Bradley?" Beckett says as she leans forward on her knees. After waiting for their rapt attention, she asks, "Why didn't you report this to the police?"

Owen runs a hand through his hair with a bashful smile as he looks over to his wife. "Well..."

"We thought it was a prank." Amy shrugs.

But Beckett is stunned, looking at the two of them with a slack jaw. "A prank?"

"What kind of frat were you in?!" Castle asks loudly.

"Why would you think this was a prank?" Beckett asks over him.

"Well," Amy starts and scoots herself closer to her husband, "anyone who knows us knows we've been together since high school."

"Getting married was just to shut our parents up." Owen says as he laces his fingers together with hers.

"We thought that some of Owen's stupid frat guy friends were trying to poke fun at the high school sweethearts for still being together."

"And once the guy started asking about our relationship with those lie detectors, we knew it was a prank by some of those pre-law guys."

"Lie detectors?" Beckett asks.

"You were hooked up to lie detectors?" Castle continues.

"I-I mean..." Amy chuckles, "what on Earth do _we_ have to hide from each other? We've been together since tenth grade."

"Mom?" The little girl announces her presence in the room, coming to stand next to the couch and looking at her mother.

"What is it, Hannah? We're talking."

"I can't get the peanut butter open and that stupid jar opener that Daddy bought is a piece of junk." She says, waving the jar around in front of her.

"Oh, I got it." Castle says with a smile and reaches over, grabbing the jar for her and opening it with a strong tug. He hands the girl the opened jar and the lid with a smile. "There ya go."

The girl smiles and sticks her finger in the jar, "Thanks." She tells him before putting a dab of peanut butter in her mouth.

"Hannah, what have I told you about using your fingers in the peanut butter?" Amy tells her daughter.

Hannah sucks on her finger and looks over to Castle, then looking to the other end of the couch to Beckett, then back to Castle. "Are you guys married?"

Both their hearts get dropped into their throats, and Castle is quick to raise his hand and wave the girl off. "Oh, no, no."

"We're just partners." Beckett tells her as she leans forward.

"So, you're _gonna_ get married." Hannah says, using her nine-year-old logic.

"We just work together, is what she means." Castle says with a smile.

"Oh," She says and looks between the two and tucks the corners of her mouth in, "you should get married." Without another word, Hannah spins around with the jar of peanut butter in her hand and makes her way back into the kitchen.

"U-uhm..." Beckett stammers, having too many images and voices flashing and raging in her mind to make sense of them all, shakes her head and looks back over to the couple, "Mr. and Mrs. Bradley, we have reason to believe that the man who kidnapped you is responsible for killing at least three other couples." With that, both of them tense up as Amy reaches for her husband. "Why you two are still alive, we don't know, but what we'd like you to do is if you could come down to the station and give us a detailed account of what happened, that would be very helpful to our investigation."

"Yeah, sure, uh..." Owen says, petting his wife's arm soothingly and pulling her into his side, "anything we can do to help."

"And if there's anything you can tell us about the man that kidnapped you, like... what he sounded like, what he looked like, how tall he was..."

"Well," Amy chimes in, looking over at her husband before back to the detective, "I remember that he took off his mask just before he left the room one time." Her voice has a shaking twinge of fear hinting at the end of her words now.

Thinking quickly, Beckett pulls out a photo of Ned Williams and shows it to her. "Is this the man you saw?"

Amy takes one look, leaning in a bit, and shakes her head as she sits back in her husband's side. "No, that's not him."

"A-are-" Castle stops her, "Are you sure?"

"I'd remember if I saw him, that's not him."

"Mrs. Bradley, if you could come by the precinct and sit down with one of our detectives, maybe a sketch artist if you're up to it, it would help us out on this case tremendously."

"Absolutely," Owen agrees and stands up, putting his arm around his wife's shoulders and pulling her in close once she's on her feet. "Anything we can do to help."

As Beckett nods and turns to head out the door, Castle catches a glimpse of Amy turning to look up at her husband with scared, vulnerable eyes, her hands on his chest as he puts his hands on her back. "Baby, we could have been killed." He hears her say softly.

"No, it's okay, sweetheart." He says back and tugs her into a hug, tucking her under his chin. Castle feels envious at how she puts her arms around his torso so tight and buries her face into his chest, closing her eyes to close herself off to the harm, allowing him to be her protector, her shield, her shelter against any and all harm. Beckett could never let her guard down that much. She always has to look danger in the eye and take it head on, the cost of her life rarely being a factor.

Beckett exits the house and makes for the car across the street, texting a message to Esposito and letting him know to prepare a witness statement and call up a sketch artist. "Well, if she's right, then Williams might be innocent after all." Castle says to her once he falls into step with her as he did before.

She nods, feeling an odd sense of relief, knowing that she has a chance to rectify one mistake in her life. If she's right and she can prove that Williams wasn't the one who kidnapped those two, she can right one of her biggest wrongs and get an innocent man back to his family. But despite that, seeing those two, how happy and well with each other they were, even that little girl's lack of tact as to their partnership wasn't as frightening as it should have been. "I'll have the boys go over Williams' alibi for the time of their kidnapping. If he has one, then we can work on getting him back to his family."

"So, the killer _was_ after something." Castle says as she starts rounding the front of the car. "He was after the perfect couple."

"But if he found it, why'd he keep killing? This..." Beckett shakes her head and opens her door, dropping herself inside, leaving Castle to follow. "It still doesn't make any sense." She finishes once inside.

They each close their doors and buckle their seatbelts and Castle waits for her to shove the keys into the ignition and start the car. But all he sees is Beckett sitting there with her hands in her lap, her fingers fiddling with her keys, her eyes down.

The dream... this couple, that little girl, Castle's smile as he met the couple, but the dream is what is permeating her conscience the most. That blank stare that said so much. She can remember it as if she was living it right now.

After waiting too long for something not to be wrong, Castle asks, "What's wrong?"

She lets out the last of her breath and lets the shackles fall. "Do you really think I don't care about you?"

She looks over to him quickly, only to see him clench his jaw as he hears what she's asking and turn back out the windshield with a lidded stare. He doesn't want to talk about this. He doesn't want his emotions tested today, simply being around her is a test enough.

But her heart is aching too much to let it stop. She has to keep going, she has to make him hear these words. "Last night, you said that I was lying to someone I... _supposedly..._ care about." She waits for it to garner a reaction, but he just keeps his jaw clenched and his eyes staring out the windshield. "How could you think I don't care about you?"

 _I find it really easy most of the time,_ he thinks to himself, thinks about saying it out loud. But he knows that would dissolve this into an argument he doesn't want to have.

"It's just..." She trails off by shaking her head, hoping to get her eyes to stop burning, and looks back down to her lap, "I thought you knew that you were the person I cared about more than anyone."

When a long few seconds pass with not a sound coming from him, as he just sits there brooding, her emotional anger starts to simmer again, quickly getting the better of her.

"You know," she hisses with tears in her eyes, "I understand that I broke your heart when you found out that I remember you telling me you loved me... and I'm aware that you have little to no trust in me right now, but..." she stops and sucks in a breath, feeling it shake as it enters her lungs, "I _wish_ you would stop making so many assumptions." She looks back over to him with stinging, burning eyes, but feels her expression is angry.

Because she is... at everything.

"Because you might know me better than anyone else, but that doesn't mean you know what I've been thinking. I _never_ said that I don't care about you."

"I didn't mean it like that." He mutters.

"Then how _did_ you mean it, Rick?!" She angrily yet tearfully pleads with him through clenched teeth. She can tell he's not going to answer the moment it leaves her lips. She pauses, taking a moment to gather herself as much as she can before she's sobbing pathetically in the driver's seat. "I don't know what I did to make you even _think_ that I don't care about you, but I really wish you would stop making so many damn assumptions. Because I _never_ said that what you said to me that day meant nothing to me, and you _don't_ know what I was waiting for or why I wanted to wait for it, so... if you're going to keep making these kinds of assumptions on what I'm thinking, then I don't see how I'm ever going to earn your trust back."

She's probably right. He probably should think he knows her that well, not well enough to say why she does the things she does. But even still, as hard as it is, he can't let himself get sucked in by her display of tears. And it's very hard. A part of himself is already berating himself over not showing her a gesture of comfort, doing what he can to make her pain go away.

"Beckett," he starts, hardening his heart as much as he can, "were you ever going to tell me?"

When she swats away the tracks of her tears with her palm, she looks over to him, silently asking him what he means, but knowing in the pit of her heart what it is.

"If I had come in just a few seconds later, and I had the chance to tell you that I wanted you to take a chance on me... would you have told me that you remembered what I said?" He doesn't look over to her, just keeps staring straight out the windshield.

She can't lie to him. Her heart can't take lying to him again. And it's going to hurt both of them, to tell the truth. Her throat clams up as she forms the words in her mind. "I wanted us to be in a place where it wouldn't have mattered."

"Kate... the fact that you were willing to build a relationship on a lie like that says all I need to know on how little you care about how I feel." He tells her with a sternness he didn't know he had left to muster. "I never thought you were that selfish."

That makes her eyes snap over to him, her heart stopping with a thud inside her chest. _Selfish?_

"It only ever matters that you weren't ready, never mind that I had to come in every day and be around a woman I loved thinking she could never feel the same way about me and that I just wasn't enough. It only ever matters that you needed everything to be in a perfect place before you have to take a chance on it, never mind that I have to bite my tongue every time I want to say that two people being together means trust them with your vulnerabilities, not pushing them away. It only ever matters that you need to go it alone, never mind that I was willing to back you up no matter what."

Now, she wants to break down completely. If this is what he felt when he got his heart broken by her, he has more strength than she ever gave him credit for. She feels so weak right now, so tired of having to prove that she's the strongest to everyone, so tired of everyone expecting so much of her, of living up to her own ego.

When she sucks in a congested breath, unwilling to look away from her fingers still fiddling with her car keys, a part of him offers what he sees as the beginnings of an olive branch, of sorts. "I never said that you didn't care... just not enough for it to be worth the risk. And if you cared about me the way I thought you did, it would have been worth it a long time ago."

Still berating herself, her heart in pieces on the floor of her stomach, she angrily but weakly jabs the keys into the ignition. And as she shoves the car into gear, there's just one thing echoing in the empty recesses of her mind. "I wanted us to be together, Castle."

* * *

 _A/N: Didn't want to keep you guys waiting too long. Casketty chapters are always easier to write, less of a chore as opposed to case heavy chapters. Hope you like it. :)_


	12. Chapter 12

_A/N: Very Casketty chapter ahead. :)_

* * *

Castle returns to the loft in the early evening. He's not nearly as anxious to get home as he was yesterday. Today was less trying with Beckett with them making a break in the case.

Once they returned to the precinct, Ryan and Esposito were already going through Williams' life again to see if he had a solid enough alibi for the time of the Bradley's disappearance. Even Beckett was accepting, surprisingly eager even, to start focusing on Williams' innocence rather than reproving his guilt as she had been when she first came to him. The Bradley's showed up to the precinct a few hours after they returned and gave a very detailed statement, recalling everything they could remember during their abduction.

And the sight of those two is what brought him to stop on the way home and buy some pale ales. Every once in a while, he just needs a hard, cold, beer.

Castle opens the door to the smell of cooking meat and the sight of his mother fluttering about the kitchen; an odd combination of senses to see her in the kitchen and the smell of good food. But he's too hopeless, to robbed of all optimism to be his bright, charismatic self and send her a smile and a joking quipped compliment.

"Hey," is all he says upon his entrance, dragging his feet into the loft and closing the door behind him.

Martha turns with a smile, sashaying as she always does, "Ah," she breathes at the sight of her son, "you're home earlier than usual for being on a case with Beckett."

"We made a pretty big break, so..." he tells her on a deep sigh as he slogs over to the island and drops the six-pack onto the counter, hidden in a black plastic bag, but the sound of the glass clinking giving it away, "just paperwork at this point."

Martha watches silently, using the corner of her eye as her son reaches into the bag he brought home and pulls out a dark brown bottle, putting the cap against the edge of the counter and slamming down onto it with his palm to open it. All she does is silently let out a sigh and untie her apron from around her neck.

As the first refreshingly bitter swig goes down his throat, he looks toward the stairs. "Alexis home?"

"No, it seems today was senior skip day at her school, so she and some friends went out to dinner, but she said to expect her home no later than eight."

"Ah," Castle nods as he takes another swig.

Martha stops her slow pacing about the kitchen and leans against the counter across from him. "Well, dinner should be ready in another ten minutes or so."

Castle nods again and slowly drags the bottle across the counter before letting it fall to his side and turns to head into his office. He's making it clear something is bothering him and is only acting this way with the sloth-like movements and half-lidded gaze. He's well aware that it's out of hopes that his mother will sniff his depression in the air and come swooping in to talk to him so he doesn't have to admit that he needs to talk about it. She gives him a moment alone and watches from the kitchen as he slumps himself down in his chair and clicks on the TV.

And as she checks the timer, she makes her way into his office as he's taking another drink and staring blankly into the nightly news.

" _We're bringing you live coverage of the prison riot that erupted a little over an hour ago. We are receiving reports that the riot has been stopped, however, dozens of inmates were sent to-"_

"So, what's this big break all about, kiddo?" She neutrally asks over the low volume of the TV.

" _We are being told by prison officials that-"_ He shrugs and picks his clicks off the TV. "I told her yesterday that there might have been another couple that the killer went after because of the timeline and she didn't believe me," he stops and sends her a look as she comes to sit down in one of the chairs facing him, "until we found them."

Martha pauses and leans back, curious. "So you found another pair of bodies?"

He shakes his head with a lift of his brow. "Nope... they're still alive, happily married for the past ten years and living out in Queens with their nine-year-old little girl with blonde hair, Hannah." With a deepening sadness, he sends his mother another look. "She loves peanut butter."

And sensing it in his tone, as an innate motherhood instinct when to talk and when not to, she stays silent and waits for him to get to the heart of the matter.

"It seems I was right... again. The killer wasn't doing it to cause pain. He was doing it to test the couples. Turns out he was kidnapping recently engaged couples and forcing them to tell the truth with shock torture. And when we got back to the precinct," he says and rolls onto his side slightly to dig out the picture from his back pocket, "I went looking through the other victim's lives and found this."

He tosses the photo, folded up three times onto his desk, close enough to where she can reach it with a stretch. When she opens it, seeing the picture of the first male victim, Joel Sydney at a work party, his pinky finger tangled around that of a petite redhead that isn't his fiance, circled in red ink. Martha knows what her son is getting at as she looks back up to him.

"Joel was cheating on his fiance and the honeymoon killer forced him to tell her the truth, and when he did, she probably was so upset that she said she didn't love him anymore, so... he shot them both."

Martha nods, seeing that same sadness pang deeper into her son's eyes. "And... this missing couple you found?"

He sighs hard and rolls his eyes to himself, taking another quick swig of his beer before explaining. "They were high school sweethearts, they had nothing to hide from each other. They told us that getting married was basically a formality. They were already together for years before deciding to get married so they didn't have any secrets and they just... loved each other."

"And that's what's bothering you? That you met a nice, happily married couple in your pursuits?"

He shakes his head slowly as he feels his heart hurt. "As we were leaving their home... realizing that they could have been killed, she turned to him with a- very clear fear in her voice. She was scared. And I saw him tell her that it was okay as he pulled her into his arms. Then at the precinct when they gave their statement, he was holding her hand the entire time, not pushing him away. She was letting him be there for her when she was vulnerable. And when they were done, and Williams' innocence had been all but proven, she offered to go out to dinner and he accepted."

Martha lets a silence form between the two of them as he trails off, gazing soulfully into the bottle before throwing down another swig. She can probably make a guess as to what's bothering him at this point but doesn't want to say it. It will only make him clam up.

"What they were was a family. That's something that every man wants." When he feels his mother's eyes on him, judging what he just said, he looks over to her, "Well, _I_ do. But seeing them together, how much she trusted him with her fears, and her insecurities, and her doubts, and how he trusted her with the same things... it made me realize that I don't think Beckett could ever do that with me."

And it's here that she feels the need to push him, to challenge him to question his own assumptions. "Richard?" She gently asks as he's taking another drink, "didn't you say this morning that she wanted to be together?"

He sucks his teeth and sets the bottle back down against his thigh, "That doesn't mean she'll ever let me be that for her, mother. The woman's always had to go it alone. And if I'm never given a chance to prove to her that she can trust me like that... I don't ever see us making it to where those two are."

On a sigh, she crosses her leg over the other and looks knowingly at her son again. "But you're going to wait for it, nonetheless, aren't you, kiddo?"

He clenches his teeth and doesn't give her an answer.

And when she sees that he isn't going to, she continues. "Because deep down, you know that if she wanted to be together then there must be some part of her that was willing to share an aspect of her life she hadn't before, am I right?"

Grasping the bottle's neck with a tight fist, he hisses through clenched teeth, mad at himself for a million different reasons. "Yes."

Martha stands to respond to the kitchen timer going off in the other room and takes a step forward, putting a loving arm on her son's wrist. "And that's because?"

"I'm still in love with her."

* * *

The next morning, Castle is up quicker to get dressed in another pair of designer jeans and a navy blue button up with the sleeves rolled up, forgoing the jacket again today. It felt nice yesterday not wearing a jacket out of simply being in a rush out to the door. He caught up with his little girl and in a surprising turn of events, she was making him and her grandmother breakfast. He gave her a very tight, fatherly hug when he heard. He has such a great daughter. Seeing that little girl yesterday, Hannah, made him miss his little six-year-old redhead though.

Keeping his mother's words in mind, he stops by his usual coffee stop and picks up his customary order, getting a smile from the barista as he takes his cups, leaving him a generous tip in his jar. When he arrives at the precinct, he finds Beckett's desk empty, but signs of her having been there. Esposito is in the conference room looking over evidence and files while Ryan is on the phone. "Hey, Castle." Ryan calls over to him as he stops near Beckett's desk.

He turns to see Ryan holding his hand over the receiver of his phone. "Any luck?"

"Turns out during the time of Owen and Amy Bradley's kidnapping, Ned Williams was out of state, visiting relatives. We called his wife and she dug up some old family photos from that time. That and the Bradley's statement, Gates says it's enough to get him released on time served. I'm on hold with the judge now."

"That's great, but um..." he says and nods to Beckett's desk, "where's Beckett?"

Ryan looks back up to him with a crooked brow. "I'm not sure, I saw her on the phone when I got in then take off to the stairwell. Hasn't been around since. _Yes!"_ Ryan says loudly as he uncovers the receiver, "Yes, your honor, we do."

With a sigh, Castle sets down the coffee on her desk and goes for the stairwell, stopping as he enters. She might have gone down to see Lanie, could have gone down to the range to vent some frustration with this whole situation between them. Lanie might be the better option, Beckett was still pretty upset after their argument in the car. But on a whim, he starts upward, taking the stairs slowly. If she had gone anywhere on an errand, she would have taken the elevator. She wouldn't have taken the stairs just to get some exercise. She would only take the stairs if she were going to one place in the building the elevator won't take her.

And when he pulls open the door to the roof access and peers out, he was right. Standing near the edge with her back toward him, clad in a dark navy blue peacoat and tight fitting slacks, is Beckett. She wouldn't have come up here to get some air. This isn't like her. One after another, these questions shoot through his mind, making his heart beat faster with worry.

As the door latches shut, the gravel on the roof crunches underneath his loafers while he slowly steps toward her. It isn't until she turns her head to look at him that he can see the clear track of a tear running down her cheek. He wishes she would stop crying. It kills him to see her cry.

"How'd you know I'd be up here?" She asks him, her voice thickened with emotion.

He shrugs casually, his brow pinched with worry and frowned, "Call it a hunch."

She nods once in a small motion before turning away from him again. Her head dips down briefly and he can see her reach up to wipe away the evidence of her tears, small enough to where he almost can't see her do it. But when she stands up straight and holds her head high, he can still see clearly that she's having trouble containing herself.

Did what he say yesterday really cause her this much pain?

"I suppose you've heard." She says without looking him in the eye.

He shakes his head, "Ryan did say you proved Williams' innocence. He was on the phone with the judge when I got here."

Beckett sniffles and dabs her sleeve under her nose. "Doesn't really matter now." She mutters.

Castle takes a small, shuffling step forward. "What do you mean?"

Her neck cranes again for a moment before she looks back up but still not at him, "There was a riot at the prison last night."

"Yeah, I-" he cuts himself off when she mentions it, not wanting the voice in the back of his mind to be right, "I heard about that."

She nods and puts her hands on the back of her waist. "Williams was in general population when it happened and he uh... he was sent to the infirmary, but um..." she trails off, but the tremble in her voice gives away why. And the tear leaking out of her eye gives away that she's only just begun the war with her own emotions. "He didn't make it."

Castle takes another step forward, so he's standing in front of her, still, a deep longing sadness in his eyes, wanting her to be okay.

She finally looks him in the eye with a small nod, trying to be brave by stoning off her expression. "He's dead."

Castle gives her a moment, not wanting to say it out of knowing it won't mean much for Williams or his family. "I'm sorry."

Her eyes look away from him again before she continues. "I finally have it. I finally have the evidence I need to get an innocent man I sent to prison out and back to his family, but..." her tone is getting tighter with coiled emotion, getting ready to spring at any moment. "But that just isn't enough, is it?" She asks him desperately, looking back at him. "I finally have a chance to fix my mistake and to... to reach behind my pride and my arrogance and my ego to fix it, but I can't now." She tells him, still putting as much bravery onto her tear-laden face as she can muster. "I can't, he's dead."

At first, her eyes simply turn down from him. But it only takes a second for her head to shake off to the side and her face get twisted with sadness and sorrow as her eyes quickly flood with tears.

He can't see her like this. He can't stand it anymore. He can't stand idly by anymore while the woman he loves goes through this alone. When she shakes her head again, vigorously to shake away the tears, he takes a courageous step forward and engulfs her in his arms, hugging her tightly to himself.

And she can't deny him any longer. For what's felt like the longest time, she's felt the need to just cry, to sob out the emotion as hard as she can. And she can't push away that feeling anymore. Once she feels his arms go around her, she doesn't hesitate at all to fling her arms around his chest and cling to him, pressing her face into his chest as hard as she can and letting everything break loose.

With one ragged breath in, she's sobbing, her cries muffled by his chest and his arms as he hugs her, her back jumping painfully against his hands as he caresses her. She stops and pulls in another long, shaking breath as she crumples up his shirt in her hands on his back, and when she lets it out again, still crying uncontrollably, he lets his eyes drift shut and puts a soothing hand on her hair, petting her scalp softly with his thumb and begins to twirl her softly from side to side.

And the feeling of him, of his sanctuary and his protection, of his loving arms wrapped around her, her heart finally proving to her mind that she can show him her weakness and not be judged any lesser for it, that she can lean on him for the support she needs, all of it only serves to intensify her sobs as she presses her face into his shirt to try and dry her never-ending tears.

She sobs for a solid few minutes, with him still rubbing her back and petting her hair as he holds her to him, and her not giving up on squeezing his torso with her arms and listening to the soft music of his heartbeat under her ear. And after her body can't take the pain of sobbing, she continues to let the tears flow out of her eyes and onto his shirt.

When she's calmed down a little bit, he moves his hand from her hair and keeps massaging the dip of her spine with his hands. "Did you know," he begins in a light, almost happy tone, "that the sperm whale produces a substance in its intestines from the food it eats that it can't digest called ambergris, and is used in the mixtures of perfumes?"

In a sudden shift, her eyes pop open and he can feel her arms jerk against him. When she pulls back to look at him with a pinched brow, her eyes still red and puffy with tears, she sees him just softly smirking at her. "Wha..."

His smirk just grows a bit brighter as he lifts his brow, "A friend of mine found a chunk of it once on his honeymoon. Made a bundle on it."

Still having no idea what he's even talking about or what he could possibly mean, she has to ask. "What does that have to do with anything?"

"It doesn't." With that, she can feel her pinched brow of confusion melt away. "I just thought you smelled nice and my mind started to wander."

That earns him a bright yet watery smile that engulfs her teary face and she doesn't waste her opportunity to wrap her arms around him again and pull herself closer to him, feeling him put his arms back around her in response. " _Thank you,"_ she mouthes silently against his chest.

He lets out a sigh as he continues to stroke her back. "No one expects you to be strong in the face of everything, Kate."

She sniffles and readjusts her head against his chest. "Yes, they do. I've always had to be the strongest, Rick. I've always had the most to prove. Even if it is just ego, I have expectations I have to live up to now."

"The only person's expectations you need to live up to are your own, Kate. If you spend your life trying to make yourself into what other people think, you're never going to be happy."

"I've set a standard now, Rick." She tells him, burying herself deeper into the cove of his arms. "I'm not allowed to show weakness. I'm not allowed to waiver in the face of anything."

"That doesn't mean you're not allowed to be human."

That sends another wave of emotions roaring up her throat, her heart aching that she was so scared of taking a chance on what this could have been, always afraid to trust him with all of this, underestimating how not only understanding but helpful and wise he can be. And before she even realizes it, she's crying silently into the chest again, reveling in the feeling of him putting her back together with little more than keeping his strong arms around her.

And after a long few minutes, when she feels gathered enough, she snakes her arms back out from around him and puts her hands gently on his chest, her fingers patting the stains her tears have made. She feels his hands slide down onto her waist as she works up to the courage to get the words out. "I'm not asking you to forget about what I did," she begins softly, looking at the buttons of his shirt, "or to feel the way you did about me before you found out. All I want is a chance."

He waits her out, wanting to see how she puts it. Because the voice of his heart is telling him that whatever it is, she already has it.

"I just want a chance to earn back your trust." She tells him, looking him in the eye through dried tears.

He blinks, feels the edges of his lips lifting in a small smile, and feels his heart urging him. He would kill to kiss her right now. "Your coffee is getting cold, Beckett."

With immediate understanding, knowing that he brought her coffee, knowing he was thinking of her even before all this and wanted to do something for her, she knows she has her chance.

And she's not going to lose it.

* * *

 _A/N: Had the hug scene written in my head for a very long time. One of the scenes that inspired me to write this story. Only took me about three hours to write the whole chapter. Let me know. :)_


	13. Chapter 13

They both stand on the roof, objecting against the cool late spring wind wafting through the air, thick with the exhaust and brake dust of the city.

Castle stays close but a respectable distance as she regains her visual appearance and professional composure. She spends a few minutes as he paces and kicks around the rocks in the gravel checking her makeup and pulling on her hair to straighten out the frizz where she was pressing her face against his chest to use his shirt as a handkerchief. Now that her emotions are settled and she's calmed down, the storm over and passed, it's an odd air between them; both having to accept it really happened and yet, having to pretend it didn't for everyone else.

Once she finishes checking over her appearance in her phone's camera, she looks at him, seeing him pace a few feet away from her with his hands tucked into his back pockets, and chuckles nervously. "Not every day you have someone break down like that, huh?" She jokes with him, wanting him to say something funny to get her spirits back up.

He smiles softly and nods at her with his neck craned. He isn't sure where to go from here. She wants a chance to earn his trust back, so all he can do is let her take the lead again. He rocks back on the balls of his feet and shrugs, "Not since Alexis' hampster died when she was eight. So, can't say _every_ day, no."

In her state, she lets a smile spread across her face and a belt of laughter shoot out of her lungs. And he feels a smile matching it forcing its way onto his face that he tries to hide by craning his neck even more. And when she tastes the air between them, the awkwardness, she knows she has to machete her way through it. He gave her a chance to win him back, she can't get scared now by a simple nervousness between them now.

"No, really, Castle," She begins softly and reaches over with her arm before deciding what the consequences would be, and puts a hand on his elbow, holding it there for a long moment. It's when she waits for him to look her in the eye that her heart stops beating. Because when he does, after looking at her hand grasping him and then looking into her eyes, she feels that connection, that special connection with him that goes straight to the core of her soul. It's felt like a lifetime since she last felt it with him. "Thank you."

 _Always,_ his heart says to her, but his cowardly mouth doesn't say it. He can't be angry at her like he was yesterday. He can't be resentful and bitter toward her attitude toward their relationship, not as much as he was when her lying to him was haunting him like a bad childhood nightmare come true. She wants a chance to earn his trust back, something she lost two weeks ago in the observation room of interrogation. And after all, maybe he was wrong and she does at least want to trust him with more than her safety.

"Don't worry about it." He platitudes, saying something neutral so's his passion for this woman doesn't take off by being too charming, vying for her attention as he always is.

She nods, feeling the connection with his eyes, and his heart, broken and lets her hand fall back down to her side. She didn't expect him to open back up to her completely. She knew it would take time and more effort than she had ever put into their minced words and subtext of a relationship before. She always knew he was ready to take that leap and all she had to do was work through the thicket of her life enough to where she could take it with him. But if she had known that she would have to work twice as hard to convince him to take the leap at all, she might have worked a lot harder, forcing Burke to push her more and more just to be with him.

At least that's how she looks back on it now. If she had known any of this was going to happen, that he was going to fall out of love with her, that her actions would convince him that she doesn't care about him at all, she would have taken the leap with him at the swings.

So, deciding to make the effort slow, she turns toward the door and flings it open, taking the stairs and hearing his steps right behind her. "Does anybody else know about Williams?" He asks, jumping down on the platform to start down the stairs next to her.

She shrugs her shoulders and guides herself down with the railing. Being with him, in his arms and letting his heartbeat and his words lull the memory of the pain away, she had almost forgotten about the goliath that is the situation in front of her. "There was a voicemail waiting for me from the prison when I got here this morning. Once I heard, I..." she trails off and looks over to him, letting him fill the gaps of her dashing off as quickly as she could into the stairwell to avoid eyes prying into her falling tears.

And he understands, his storytellers mind quick enough to finish without her. "Yeah." He murmurs. He's not sure where to go from here. He doesn't know where she stands on mustering up her usual confident stride, strengthful posture, her unwavering determination to find the truth and get justice. He's always known she's had to keep things bottled up, but he always assumed that she vented it out little by little as she needed to on her own.

It would have broken his heart to know she was keeping all of it inside and had to let it break her down like that before with no one there to catch her. He fell for her strength and determination but knows she can't be like that all the time. Even despite what she needs to tell herself, she's still human, she still feels.

But even in his life, there were times when he needed someone to hold, just to let him know that there was someone around, that cared and not only wanted things to be better but wanted to be there regardless of if they were or not.

He can't keep hitching onto this train of thought. Before, it would push him to constantly change himself to suit her wants so he could have that kind of relationship, to make himself into someone she'd stick beside regardless. But now... all it does is sour his insides with resentment and bitterness. He violently shakes the thoughts away, the motion of his head shaking invisible to her as she swings the door to the murder division open. There's work to be done.

As Beckett pans the bullpen, it's clear that everybody has heard.

Gates is standing with her arms crossed in front of Ryan and Esposito, Ryan leaned against the side of his desk and Espo standing next to him with a file in his hands. Castle trails closely behind Beckett as she strides back into the bullpen. "Sir," she announces herself.

"Detective Beckett," Gates says, amazingly soothing for her, as she softens her usual stern expression and steps between the two detectives, who part for her, "I'm afraid I have some bad news."

"I heard, Sir. The prison already called me." Beckett says as she stops in front of her captain.

"Yeah," Ryan chimes in by crossing his arms and turning around against his desk, "we just prove the guy's innocence and he ends up shanked in a prison riot."

Castle watches as Espo, on cue, slaps his partner's arm with the file in his hand, reminding him not to say what they all already know. But Gates shoots a look over her shoulder before looking back to both Castle and Beckett. "That's not it."

"Then what is it, Captain?" Castle asks, stepping up to her, putting himself close to her shoulder, but still behind, enough to let her know that despite it all, he still has her back.

She can tell that whatever it is Gates has to tell her, she isn't going to enjoy say it, and whats more is going to have a hard time saying it at all. "Williams' family, on the advice of their attorney, are filing a civil suit against you."

" _What?!"_ All three male voices shout, Espo stepping around Gates to look her in the eye with a fiery anger, Ryan jumping off his desk, and Castle's heart surging with the ghost of the same feeling he felt that day one year ago. Something is out there to get her and it's his job to save her, his own well being not on the table of factors.

But Beckett, her stomach just turned into a rock, her throat closed and all she can feel is all her hidden failures she couldn't see before, all opened their eyes to her like predators glaring at her from the darkness of the forest. Anyone of them could jump out at her and take the lunge.

Gates quiets her detectives with a simple raising of her hand. "Williams' wife is bringing a wrongful death suit against you."

"So what?" Espo raises his arms. "They're looking for a payout now?"

"This wasn't Beckett's fault, Sir." Ryan urges from behind.

Beckett can just stay silent.

Gates crosses her arms, shrugs her shoulders and shakes her head, obviously as frustrated with the situation as everyone else is. "They are claiming that because Detective Beckett was the one who made the arrest, his death in prison is her responsibility. And as for their terms-"

"How much do they want?" Castle asks over her, cutting her off, putting as much seriousness into his voice as he can. And it catches his partner's attention, making him the first person to earn her full attention since she was thrown into this hell just a few minutes ago.

She looks over her shoulder to him to see a sternness in his blue eyes and a firm set in his jaw. She adores his inner child, his humor, and his laughter, even his incredibly stupid jokes. But she fell for his heart; the love he has for his family and how much he cares about those close to him. It's enough to make a smile want to spread onto her face if she was feeling like her face could even move.

"Mr. Castle, it's not that simple," Gates says, raising her brow to him.

"However much they want, I'll pay it!" He shouts.

"Mr. Cas-"

"So generous, Rodgers." A slimy voice interrupts the captain.

All eyes, including Ryan and Espo's, go to the elevator and see William's lawyer, Craig Vernon standing with a set of papers in one hand, dressed in a pressed suit.

Every single muscle in Castle's body tenses when he sees the man, and he quickly turns to face him and puts himself in between her and Vernon.

Vernon just smiles that same stupid smile he did in high school as his hand flies up toward Beckett, flicking the papers at her with the flick of his wrist. "Captain Gates, the Williams family are seeking seven million for the death of Ned Williams and they want Detective Beckett relieved of duty."

Before he can think, Castle's right fist balls and flies across Vernon's face, punching him perfectly, with every fiber of his weight, across his left cheekbone.

" _Whoa whoa whoa!"_ Espo says loudly as both him and Ryan quickly spring into action to wrap their arms around their friend's shoulders, pulling him back as he struggles against their hold to keep going after Vernon. Vernon's hand is holding his nose, his perfectly gelled hair disheveled and his smirk gone, replaced by a darkened look of hatred, shooting directly at Castle. "Easy, bro. Take it easy." Espo says in a harsh whisper as Castle continues to strongly struggle against their grasp.

Beckett's never seen him like that. Her heart doesn't know what to think. If they were alone, or ever had the chance to be alone, she'd do for him what he did for her just minutes ago. Wrap her arms around him until he knows it was going to be alright.

As the lawyer, hunched forward and still holding his face, shakes out his jacket and looks at the blood staining his hand, his eyes go from Castle to Captain Gates, then back over to Beckett. "You've been served, Detective." He says in a congested, nasally voice before looking over to Castle, who's stopped struggling against Ryan and Esposito. "Never pegged you for a brawler, Rodgers." He continues as he takes a step backward toward the elevator.

"Believe me, I should have done that years ago!" Castle shouts back as he enters the elevator.

When the elevator departs, Beckett limply holding a set of papers she couldn't care less about at the moment down by her side, Esposito gives Castle's arm a strong pat of support as both he and Ryan let him go. And Ryan is the first to look up at Castle and ask, "You two know each other?"

"Let's just say it was a long time coming." He answers through clenched teeth.

Beckett sends eyes of warning over to Espo and Ryan, warning them not to prod any further, and it sends them stepping back a few steps. Gates, looking stunned and missing her chance to discipline the lot of them, lets out a sigh and crosses her arms. "We'll fight this every way we can, Detective." She says and takes the papers from her. "Don't worry, you have the whole precinct behind you."

"And Castle's mean right hook." Ryan jokes with a smile.

"In the meantime," Gates silences the chuckling, "we still have a killer to catch. They don't have your badge yet, Beckett, so as far as I'm concerned, you're still a detective of my precinct. With the Bradley's statement, we could break this case wide open. We're still coordinating with the police that picked up the newest set of bodies, but if we're going to solve this case, I need boots up there."

She can't think of anything right now. She feels like a shell. "Castle and I will leave as soon as we can, Sir."

Castle would verbally agree, might remind her that he can't be gone more than a few days. But she just had her whole life thrown at her, she doesn't need him pestering her. "But first," Gates stops her, "I want you and Castle to start digging into Williams' life again."

"Why is that, Sir?" Castle asks.

"Because if we can prove him guilty of something, we might be able to get this thrown out." She says, waving the papers in the air.

"Sir," Beckett starts, "the Bradley's statement clearly exonerates Williams of the murders. Both of them said that Williams had the wrong build. They described their kidnapper as at least six feet, Williams was five foot eight."

"Your gut said that he was guilty." Gates tells her. "Now, if he wasn't guilty of murder, what was he guilty of?"

All Beckett can do is nod and recross her arms over her stomach. After that, Gates gives them all a silent nod and turns to head back into her office. Ryan and Esposito soon follow her, getting a look from Castle to give them a minute. With one long breath being let out of her shaky lungs, she watches as Castle shoves his hands into his pockets and paces his way in front of her.

"I don't suppose you could lend me seven million dollars?" She jokes darkly.

"I'd be happy to if I knew thirty percent of it wasn't going to that giant walking used tissue suing you."

Beckett looks up ahead of him, her expression void and her eyes staring off into space before she looks at him. And when she looks into his eyes, a part of her knows, he's the one person she can always count on. He's always been right beside her, backing her up. Even now, after everything she's done to destroy his trust in her, he's still here. When she sees him having met her eyes and sees a small, very soft smile tease the edges of his lips as he blinks, her heart tells her that it's going to be okay.

"You think we can really prove Williams is guilty of something?" She asks, the waggle of her brow giving away that it's a challenge.

And with that cute waggle of her brow she's giving him, he lets his soft smile grow into a smirk. "I do." He answers her, rolling his shoulders back confidently. "And after that, we're going to find the real killer. Because Gates is right." She raises her brow and moves her head to the side, gesturing him a question. "Your gut said he was guilty and from my experience, your gut is very rarely ever wrong."

She smiles softly at him in return and takes a step forward, putting herself at his side. She then meets his eyes again, putting a hand on his bicep when she's next to him. "It's been wrong before, Castle."


	14. Chapter 14

"So, what do you have on those charges that were dropped?" Castle asks, elbow deep in a pile of papers and files in the conference room.

It's rare occasion when her partner is this focused and his mind is this quick and unstoppable. They've been here all day, and he should have gone home by now. It's nearing seven in the evening, and they were at a stalemate for most of the day, trying to prove Williams guilty of something to exonerate herself of guilt. She finished the cup of coffee she found waiting for her rather quickly, but nothing was as good as the first sip, and even that can't top the twinkle she saw in his eye as she took it.

But now, with the light second shift of the evening meandering around the precinct, Ryan and Espo both having gone home some time ago with no new details surfacing on the actual case, it's just her and her partner. And he just sparked the idea that has been bugging the back of his mind all day. Why William's ex-girlfriend dropped the charges if she thought he was dangerous enough to issue a restraining order?

"They were only going out for about six months, if they're phone history is correct." Beckett says, handing him the list.

Castle quickly takes it blindly and begins to skim the list of calls. The room is silent between the two of them, thick with tension as his eyes stop suddenly from their quick jolting from side to side. "Wait, there's..."

"What is it, Castle?" Beckett asks, not wanting him to keep anything, even one of his crazy theories, internalized.

Castle grabs a pen and marks on the paper several times before handing her back the paper. "Who does that number belong to? It's unlisted."

Beckett grabs the logs from him and sees that Williams made several calls just before the date of his arrest for violating his restraining order, and the one phone call he made while in holding was to his girlfriend, Chelsea Goodman. Before that, his only few calls were to an unlisted number and to his girlfriend. "Maybe..." She tries, her brain already hurting, she's having a hard time focusing on the case, especially now, being here and watching him. "Maybe he called her in holding to apologize?" She weakly theorizes.

"But that still doesn't explain who this unlisted number belongs to." He says, taking back the call log from her when she offers. "Was Williams' girlfriend seeing anyone at the time?" He asks, flipping over to the next page of the log.

She chuckles to herself, thinking to herself why would she have the answer to that, and leans back in her chair directly across from her. "Chelsea Goodman wasn't exactly a person of interest, Castle."

Castle sighs softly in venting slight frustration, sets down the log in front of him and reaches over to another large pile of files and pulls one off the top. Something about the sight of this, watching him speed read through files, that focused furrow in his brow, and that adorable half smirk that adorns his lips when he finds something that connects one dot to another. She can tell, and is very, _very_ aware that she's getting flustered watching his lips turn up into that proud grin he has. Her skin flushing with heat and the tips of her limbs shaking as her heart drains as much blood as it can to sustain itself.

She's always had a very specific fantasy of when they kiss again... if they ever do, at this point.

She's always wanted him to do it slowly, taking every motion in kissing her with very slow purpose so she can soak in and savor every little feeling his lips give her, press it into the folds of her mind so's to never ever forget what kissing him feels like. Their kiss in that dank alley was too fast, for what her likings are now. The shock of him crossing that mile-wide line so quickly threw her so much, her walls were not shored up enough to withstand the feeling of him grabbing her like that and pulling her in. In recovery, if her meds were strong enough, she'd dream of it and the unexplained part of the mind would bring his lips back to her.

And when she floats this thought through her mind as she watches him, a flicker of guilt jumps from her stomach, making it twist. It's not that she never thought about calling him, or not that she didn't want to hear from him, or even need him. There's a lot of reasons that, at the time, made perfect sense. But that's usually the way it works. Excuses always make sense when you make them, but eventually, you're going to have to do one of two things, defend them or admit you made a mistake. Both are hard in their own right, but there's only one that pushes you to grow stronger as a person.

Burke's words.

She feels a small smile pushing onto her lips and she hides it by looking down at her lap as she leans back in her chair.

"Beckett?" He asks, only now noticing that their usual roles have reversed. It's usually her that's intensely focused and he who's wandering mind won't sit still on the here and now.

At the sound of his voice, her head jumps back up and she shoots him a raised brow and pursed lips. "Yeah?" She chirps, forgetting their setting for a brief moment.

"The uh..." He starts awkwardly as he points to a stack of files sitting next to her, "the visitor's log for Williams' time in prison?"

Her eyes flick quickly between him, his pointing finger, and the stack of files sitting at her eleven o'clock. In her introspective state, she has no fortitude left to pull back her bashful smile and her nervous chuckle. "Right," She practically giggles and stretches across the table to hand him Williams' visitor's record.

Taking the log, Castle eyes her for a moment to read her. She's clearly thinking about something, and it's not in the room. Her mind is somewhere else and she doesn't want to pull it back to where that somewhere else is. Any other time, he'd jump at the opening like a Bengal Tiger from the brush. Even now, his heart is aching for the chance to at least try to sneak past that demilitarised zone of a wall she has around herself. But usually, when he does, he ends up getting shot.

So, he quells the want in his chest and looks over the record she just handed him, watching out of the corner of his eye as she goes back to picking at her thumbnail with her eyes down on her lap.

"Didn't have many visitors." He points out. "And for his wife having just given birth, she clearly hasn't been to keen on keeping up the father-son relationship. She hasn't visited him since October of 07... and not for three years before that."

"What about when he was first sentenced?" She asks, her mind caught up in the case for just a second.

"Uh..." he says as he flips through the pages again, "just one visitor his first few months. But it was a relative, a cousin."

Letting out a sigh, she scrubs her face with her palms and pushes her hair back with her fingers. "So, we're nowhere then."

Matching her frustration, he flips the file closed and tosses it back down to the table, leaning forward on his elbows, resting his mouth and chin against his clasped hands. There's a long minute of silence between them, with Castle's eyes wide as he spaces out, letting his mind wander free for a minute, and Beckett's eyes glancing at him out of its corner.

It's late, they're both tired, the few leftover cartons of Chinese are sitting in an unused corner of the table, two pairs of chopsticks sticking out of one container, and if there was ever an opportune time to start making the hard push for some headway between them, it's now. But, being fair, she at least as to offer him an out, as he has for her in the past. She's not going to force him to talk to her if he doesn't want to.

"You know, since we aren't getting anywhere, you can take off." She offers with a wave of her hand. That catches his eye, making them focus back to her as she looks over to him with one of her gentle, emotionally honest smiles. "I'm sure you want to see Alexis before the night's up."

He blinks once and diverts his eyes back down to the stack of files separating them. "No, it's fine. I can stay." He says and busies himself with doing nothing more than moving files about. "This is your job on the line, after all. It's important to you."

She nods and puts her eyes back down to her lap, picking at her thumbnail again. A nervous tick she picked up in therapy. "Well, thank you." She pushes, her throat closing up. She hears him rustling with files before she continues. "I know helping me is probably the last thing you want to do right now, Castle, but... it means a lot."

The deep sigh that just got pushed out of his nostrils is a silent warning that he doesn't want to talk about it. But she takes it as a sign to keep moving forward.

"Are we ever going to talk about it?" She asks, not wanting the words she just let fly to cut the room as much as they did. But when she looks up to him, she sees his eyes down on an open file in front of him. She can tell he's not really reading it, just doesn't want to give her any attention. "About you saying-" _you love me,_ "... what you did." She lets her cowardice correct her.

"Beckett, I'd..." he gnashes his teeth so's not to overspeak, and takes a breath, "I'd rather just forget about it, okay?"

With the raised motion of his hand and him only looking at her for a second before looking away... before, she'd let him leave it at that, let what little courage it took to bring it up at all be for nothing.

 _You can try to forget about it all you want, Kate. But that doesn't mean it never happened. It's still there and the longer you leave it, the harder it's going to be to deal with._ Burke's words ghost their way into her mind, flashing back to what he said back when she first admitted to him the real reason why she lied during her first psych eval, and what brought her back to him in the first place. Because, at first, all she wanted to do was forget about it... until she saw him again.

She nods to him again and cranes her neck to look back down to her lap. "I understand." She tells him, feeling in the air that he thinks it's over. "But..." she speaks from her heart, albeit weakly, "what if I don't?"

Castle's spine rocks with a shot of cold nerves, his heart not prepared for what she just said. Whatever it means, she just said she doesn't want to forget about lying straight to his face for this long about something like that. He stops, frozen, his head turns down away from her.

She was hoping to have some eye contact, some silent gesture that he was open to keep talking, but she gets nothing, and takes it as a sign to push harder. "What if I want to move past it?"

Stomping out the butterflies in his stomach, he sighs and looks back down to the open file in his hands. "That's what I'm doing, Beckett."

But she shakes her head as she starts to rebutt. "Forgetting about something doesn't mean you've dealt with it, Castle. I know, I've _tried."_

In one quick motion, Castle flips the file closed and leans back up to look over to her, silent so's to give her a chance to plead her case.

"Just..." she hesitates, letting her voice crack in her throat a bit before continuing, "just something I picked up from my therapist." She admits and looks away from him again.

But with that, the gears in his mind lock up, mostly with a new swarm of doubts and questions. "Y-you... you went to see a therapist?" He asks her in a tight voice.

She chuckles despite herself and shrugs her shoulders, looking back up at him. "Well, I _did_ get shot, Castle." She half-jokes before shaking her head. "It started out as a normal psych eval to get my gun back from Gates. At first, I told him exactly what I had committed to, that I didn't remember anything. So, he signed me off and cleared me for duty."

"Then why'd you go back?" He asks, not being able to stop it.

She smiles, almost sadly, looking back up to him with soulful eyes, wordlessly telling him exactly what made her go back. And somehow, he understands. "It's weird," She starts again, "when I went back and told him that I had lied and he asked me what I did remember... I told him I remember everything and he just... he smirked, set his pad down, poured me a glass of water, and said... I was wondering how long it would take you to tell me."

Castle's devil and angel are dueling it out on his shoulder, arguing back and forth. She went to a therapist because she was shot in the chest, had her life taken from her. No, she went to a therapist to get better for him, otherwise she would have stuck it out on her own. That's stupid, you saw her when she came back, shaking and scared when she saw a gun drawn on her again, she was seeing a therapist to help her get her normal life back, not something else with him. But she was fine after that, why did she keep going?

Beckett, unaware of the battle going on in her partner's mind, continues. "He knew I was lying and cleared me for duty anyway."

"So," Castle begins, his heart pounding in his throat, "I take it he helped?"

She nods her head in a wide motion. "He helped me make sense of a lot of things. And..." she feels a sharp pain in her heart, knowing it's going to hurt both of them to admit this, "Rick, you were right." She tells him, looking him in the eye again. "I've worked hard to work past what happened at Montgomery's funeral. But still, I was willing to let us be together and forget about that day. And if you actually had a chance to get those words out before," she stops, looking through the window and into the empty bullpen, " _Ryan_ and his sixth sense interrupted you and I got the chance to tell you I was ready to give it a shot, it would have been based on a lie."

"And now? What would it be based on now?" He almost rhetorically asks.

Painfully, she rolls her eyes to herself and feels her chest fold inward as she feels pleading with him. "You know, Castle, I was clearly right before when I said you don't know what I was waiting for."

"Then what _were_ you waiting for, Beckett? For as long as you lied to me, what did you want out of it?"

"Castle, I'm _sorry_ I lied to you. But if I was willing to let us fall apart because of my own personal problems, I would have jumped into it head first, okay?"

"I'm supposed to be your partner, Beckett." He argues back, finally finding it in himself not to give her a chance to take a mile after only giving her an inch. "What _I_ was waiting for was supposed to be stronger than to be broken apart by something like that. Because if we did end up together, you can't run and hide when you have problems."

"You're _right,_ Castle! Can't you see that's what I'm trying to tell you?!" She asks, half out of anger and half out of sorrow. She can feel her eyes burn. She was really hoping she was done crying after breaking down in his arms this morning.

He sighs, clenches his jaw, and leans back in his chair.

"So," She starts, wanting to work through it, whatever it takes, "just... tell me what it is that you need from me."

He nods and leans forward again, his brow straight and serious as he looks away from her. He lets out a small breath, draining himself of as much emotion as he can before starting. "You want to know what I asked Meredith for when I found out about the affair?" He asks, looking back up at her and using every ounce of strength he has not to be swayed by her tears. What he has to say, saying something that no one besides Meredith knows, is too important. "My way to fix our marriage was to have another child."

Her heart beats painfully inside her stomach, pulling her last breath from her. "You wanted to have more kids?"

He shrugs his shoulders, "I figured if she didn't love Alexis enough to stick around, maybe she'd love Lily... or Reese." He says, telling her the names he had picked in his mind at the time. "That's why she really left, Beckett. Gina left because all we did was fight and when I tried to fix it through counseling, all it did was make her want to leave faster. And Kyra..." he trails off, his heart aching, "I started _hinting_ at what I wanted out of us and she put an entire ocean's distance between us."

"Castle, what I wanted for us-"

"The day you came to me," he stops her, "after you asked for the file I had... we were in your apartment, and I was telling you about the fire in the warehouse. You were saying that if it was just a coincidence, then you had nothing."

In her mind, she can recall perfectly the moment he's talking about. And it's breaking her heart. Because she knows exactly what's coming next.

"That everyone was gone... that you had no one. That everyone had left you. It didn't hurt as much as it does now because then, I thought you were just blind. I thought all I had to do was to get you to see me. But... if you couldn't see me then knowing how I felt, how am I supposed to believe you can see me now? You..." he trails off again, looking away from her, "you don't know how happy I wanted you to make you, Beckett. Because I was willing to jump in front of a lot of things to make it happen... but it never did, so... so yeah, I just want to forget about it."

With that, his eyes turn away from her, leaving her feeling small and painfully weak. This isn't what she wanted. She didn't think working to better them would hurt this much. "You know, Castle, you're right." She starts in a small voice. "I don't know how happy I could have been if we ended up together."

The sigh he lets out is just another push forward.

"But I know how happy you make me now... and it's more than I've ever been with anyone else."

* * *

 _A/N: Had my nose pressed pretty hard to the grindstone lately. Working a lot. Even now, I'm rushing out the door, so forgive any spelling mistakes. Grammarly can only do so much. :)_


	15. Chapter 15

For the third time in the very long... what is sure to be morning by now, he hasn't had the courage to actually look at the clock yet, Castle shoves himself onto his right side and frantically begins to kick out the covers that have been tangled up around his legs all night. Once settled, he relaxes as much as he can into the mattress, letting out as much energy from his muscles and unclenching everything he can to relax. Cracking open his eyes, he peeks over to the other side of the bed, a space that has been reserved for a significant other for a long time, mostly his wife, but seeing it empty, he slams his eyes shut again.

But after a long few minutes of effort and absolutely no reward of being the least bit tired, his teeth grind and he groans loudly, tossing himself heatedly onto his back and staring at the dark ceiling.

 _I know how happy you make me now,_ she said. With a conviction and fortitude that he used to rely on.

And the silence he met it with, too busy warring with himself over everything, just staring at her like he is the light fixture on the ceiling now. Blankly and not having a clue how to respond.

Even still, he can remember how rejected, maybe even heartbroken her eyes looked when she looked away from him when he didn't answer. And what she asked him next, she asked without making eye contact, not looking up from picking at her nails.

 _I guess the question is do I still make you happy._

It didn't sound like a question, and she wasn't expecting a response. The way she said it, so quietly and monotone, as if she meant to say it in his ear. It's what he's beating himself up over, why he can't get any sleep after... four long hours of trying. It's already almost two in the morning.

Because there are two parts of himself at war with each other. His heart usually takes the lead, knowing what to do... but his mind knows it's been broken far too often to let him put everything on the line again. So, he couldn't answer and after a solid minute of silence, after she asked, she gave him an out by asking if she'd see him in the morning.

 _Coward,_ his heart berates him.

Accepting defeat, he shoves the covers off the bed entirely with his legs and flings himself upright in one swift motion, quickly making for the door to his office. After steadying himself on the doorknob from the vertigo setting in, he makes for the bureau behind his desk, eyes quickly finding the decanter and tumbler sitting where they are usually left. It's not until his right-hand grabs a glass and his right pulls the lid off the bottle that something hits him... right in the pit of his heart.

The image of her, looking so vulnerable, standing just a few feet away, rubbing her wristwatch with a sad sparkle in her hazel eyes. He didn't want to pay much attention to it, not when he was still so furious with her and was still one-hundred-percent determined to move on with his life. But even then, she was telling him that she didn't want to see another person she cared, and cared deeply, about using alcohol to rid themselves of heartache... or maybe punish themselves for being put in the position to get their heart broken at all.

Even now, it would feel like a betrayal.

With a frustrated sigh, the thousandth of the night, he sets the glass back down with a clack and haphazardly puts the lid back on the decanter, and decides to just find something in the kitchen. It's dark in the loft, save for the streetlights shining through the windows and the lights illuminating the counters against the wall in the kitchen. The loft is deathly quiet, a perk in the city thanks to the soundproof walls.

He hates seeing it like this.

Alexis will be going to college soon, moving out and moving on with her life spent here, playing house under the piano and having him attend tea parties at the coffee table. Soon, it will be just him. Even his mother, her hectic schedule, and nightlife keep her going more than it does coming. Besides, he loves his mother, but she's not exactly the person he pictured growing old with.

He wanted a family when he bought this loft. He and Meredith had just gotten married when they moved in. It's not like her getting pregnant was an accident, but it wasn't planned. It just happened a year into their marriage and he saw all the pieces of his dream life being put into place. If he'd known or hadn't been blinded by the sheer amount of desire for it to happen, that she had no interest in being a mother, he would have spared his little girl from growing up without a mother. Because whereas Meredith had no desire to be a parent, Rick's life goal ever since he was a kid was to be a father, the kind of father he wanted and needed when he was growing up alone and on the road with his performing mother.

Then he met her, and before he realized it, he thought he had a shot at finishing that puzzle he never got the chance to finish.

Beckett is unlike any other woman he's ever met. One of the many reasons she's had him on the hook for her since day one. Whereas other women went googly-eyed and droll when he approached simply because of his wealth or his jawline, it didn't seem to phase her. It was a different, but welcomed feeling having to work this hard for her affection, and what little of it she ever offered to him.

Eventually, after very slowly meandering aimlessly through the living room, he plops down into the center cushion of the couch on a hard, depressing sigh.

 _Just answer the damn question honestly, don't think about it,_ he thinks to himself.

He's still hurt and probably just beginning on the long road to repairing his mangled heart and heavily bruised ego, but at the end of the day, when everything else is put to bed and it's just them, does she make him happy?

"Yes," he whispers to himself with a cold, guilt-ridden chill running up the center of his chest.

And yes, maybe on some level he wasn't aware of at the time, he did agree to help her on some higher than Everest hope that they could reconcile and finally get to where they both deserve, that way the past four years of watching her be with other men that worked a fraction as hard as he did for her attention weren't all for nothing. Therapy or not, she did apologize... and asked him what work _she_ needs to do to get them back in that place again, ready to jump over that cliff together like they were.

His heart in a tangled mess of twisted feelings, he lays himself down across the length of the couch and stares through the skylight, clasping his hands over his stomach.

Right now, he can't help but wonder what she's doing. Whether she's simply sleeping soundly in her bed, or if she's still up trying to cry herself to sleep. Her breakdown, finally showing him a side of her vulnerability that he never knew how much of she was harboring, made him wonder just how many times she's had to do that alone, with no one around to sway her back and forth and pet her hair until she calms down and regains her strength. Or maybe she's doing exactly what he's doing now, laying on her couch wide awake, thinking about ways to get them back on the right path.

Even now, the memory in his muscles of holding her slender frame in his arms, they can still feel it, feel her, hugging his chest here on the couch, her head down on his chest listening to his heartbeat, coming down from a long day of simply being in love with each other. Just one fantasy among many, her falling asleep in his arms here on this couch, both of them tuckered out after a long Saturday of roughhousing with their kids.

That's what he was waiting for.

And there's not a single part of him that can even utter the bold-faced lie that he isn't still hopelessly in love with her.

 _For crying out loud, she wants to be with you,_ he lectures himself like a child.

 _Like Kyra wanted to be with you, or Meredith, or even Gina? They wanted to be with you right up until there was something about you that just didn't measure up. What makes you think it will be any different when she's kept you on the back burner this long, huh?_ His mind asks him, wanting to protect himself from harm.

That cold feeling running through his blood again, he closes his eyes and forces himself to shut up. _Because she did something none of them did and asked what she could do, and you were so blind by your heartache that you didn't answer her, did you?  
_

His hands reach up to his face and he presses his palms into his eye sockets, wanting the thoughts to stop. _You don't know that that means she wanted a life and in some crazy fever dream, a family. Not Beckett._

 _If you're still this in love with her, you'll give her a chance. And you don't know what Kate Beckett wanted. You're smart enough to know that if she took this much caution with a relationship with you, she did it for a reason._

"She-" he starts out loud, wanting to hear the words out loud for a change. "She really did want something more."

* * *

It's that next morning that he finds himself riding the elevator in the precinct up to the homicide division with, once again, two cups of coffee in hand.

He finally managed to catch a little bit of sleep on the couch, but it was fitful. So, he's tired. And as the elevator slows to a stop and the doors slide open, Castle shoves off the railing and steps out, finding the precinct abuzz with more movement than usual, more voices shouting and talking than normal, more papers being rustled than normal. He stops to try and guess what's happening but doesn't get the chance before Beckett comes from around the corner, with her bag hanging from her shoulder, her eyes down on her phone.

"Hey," he calls for her attention.

Beckett looks up, surprised and her heart jumping at the sight of him arriving this early. "Hey," She calls back, her tone surprising even her at how happy it came out sounding. Because despite their situation, whatever it may be, she's happy to see him in the morning. And once again, seeing him strut up to her with those familiar cups of coffee in hand gives her heart a much-needed warming. She tried hard last night, hoping she got somewhere.

She takes the cup from him with a small thankful smile before moving into the bullpen for the morning. "What's going on?"

"I'm not sure," she answers. She pauses to take that first sip, letting that sweet vanilla taste pour down her throat. "I just got here myself. I just know Gates needs us." She tells him as he follows her into the bullpen, falling in step by her side. Beckett looks over the text again before locking her screen and slipping her phone back into the back pocket of her jeans. She looks up to see Ryan and Esposito leans against Ryan's desk, arms crossed and eyes up at the TV screen. "Guys," She calls out as her and her partner approach, waiting for them to turn over their shoulders, "what's going on?"

Esposito shoves off Ryan's desk, but Ryan is the first to start explaining. "News came in early this morning, Gates wants you and Castle on the road up there, first thing."

"Why? What happened?" Castle asks, looking between the two of them.

"Last night," Esposito says pointing to the TV with the remote in his hand, "highway patrol picked up a woman walking the side of the interstate."

"She was unresponsive at first, and her face was splattered with blood." Ryan continues on.

"So, she was attacked?" Beckett asks.

"No," Espo answers. "The blood wasn't hers."

"When they tried questioning her, they asked whose blood it was, she reportedly said nothing, but was holding this." Ryan says, taking up a picture from his desk, that of a print of a picture on a metal examining table, splattered with blood. The photo is that of the victim on the screen and a man right around her age with short, curly light hair and a pair of glasses. Another couple.

"The honeymoon killer." Castle thinks out loud for all of them.

A cold grip of nerves engulfing her, Beckett's bones feel chilled. "He only killed one of them."

"Gates is on the phone with their precinct now. They're expecting you two. Me and Ryan will stay here and coordinate."

"But why would he leave one alive?" Castle asks. "Why only kill one?" He asks again as Beckett is already taking off back out of the bullpen.

"Castle!" She shouts on through the barrier as she heads for the elevator.

Jumping back into action, Castle is rushing to catch up to her and both of them are consumed, their own personal problems left by the wayside as they step onto the elevator together. "This doesn't make any sense." He continues to mull over out loud as the doors shut in front of them. "Before, he either left both of them alive if they passed his test, or killed them both if they failed. Why change his MO now?"

"We'll find out when we get up there, Castle." Beckett says as she jabs the button for the carpool. The elevator begins to descend and it's quiet between them. _I guess the question is do I still make you happy,_ her words ring through her head again.

He's here, he's still here, willing to help her, despite all she's put him through, what they've put each other through. Even if it is out of some odd sense of obligation, he's here. That has to count for something, it must mean something to him. He wouldn't still be here if it didn't. Maybe he's giving her the chance she asked for, the chance to earn back more than just his trust.

Because what she wants is his heart. That big, courageous, caring heart of his.

"Rick..." she breaks the silence only briefly.

His heart jumps at the sound, still not used to the sensual sound of his first name coming from her lips like that. His reply is only to look at her with a slight arch in his brow.

"I meant what I said last night." She admits, feeling a knot fold itself into her stomach. "You waited for me to be ready, so if waiting for you is what you need, I'll do it."

 _See? The fact she's willing to wait is enough, isn't it? The old you would have her pinned against the wall of the elevator already._

 _The old you is what got you into this mess, to begin with, remember?_ His heart and conscience still battle it out.

After hearing nothing, not even a sigh to acknowledge that he heard her, she grits her teeth and continues, getting tired of not hearing anything from him. She thought it would be easy to get him to open up to her when the time came. "I'm not asking for your forgiveness, Castle. Just for you to know that I am sorry I hurt you."

"I know you are, Kate." His voice finally breaks out, the two sides of himself taking a ceasefire momentarily. Her heart skips violently when he lets her name fall from those satin lips of his. "You needed time to be ready, well... maybe I need some time to take the risk of being hurt again."

A part of her wants to take it as a challenge, as a sign of hope that he'll at least still be there, waiting to take that leap with her. That final leap. And knowing that she even _wanted_ it to be a final leap, knowing that she wants the things with him that she thought she gave up in the name of living for the job, she knows going through what he went through waiting for her has to be worth it.

"Okay."

* * *

 _A/N: Bit of a transitional chapter. The next one is one that got me to start writing this story. Keep on the look out. Not sure when it will be up. Still working 10+ hours a day. Thanks for all the ups and continued support. Broke 400 reviews last chapter! :D_


	16. Chapter 16

"Thank you, Sergent, my partner and I will be there in shortly." Beckett says into her phone, clicking end and letting her phone fall into the center console.

The drive was slow, as it always is getting out of the city in the morning on a weekday. The air between them is still tense, ready to crackle at a single spark, whether it be from a word said out of turn to set it ablaze, or a passing touch made my accident ready to set them darting towards each other, only time will tell. Castle has had a deepening worry on his mind ever since they crossed the bridge off the island, which was close to an hour and a half ago. It's been silent between them except for an intermittent minute or two spent talking about the case.

He really can't take it anymore, he has to ask. It's far too important. "When do you think we'll be back?"

The question sends her mind and heart whirling together. Is he asking when he can get back to his own life moving on from her or is he asking when he'll have the chance to get a chance for something else? "Wha..." she hesitates, checking her words and tone before speaking, not wanting to give too much away to him yet. "Well, we have to interview Veronica, see if we can get her to talk, the local police just found the body in town an hour ago, so... I'm not sure, Castle. Why?"

The words dart out of his mouth before he can check them to see if they'll ignite the air. "Because Alexis' graduation is tomorrow."

She's taken aback by it, the force of which he said it. But after taking only a moment to mull it over, he knows he's the kind of father that wouldn't miss an event like that. He's the kind of father that would go to the ends of any Earth he was put on if his child needed him. She can feel herself battling a smile, thinking about it. "Well, if need be, we can drive back down."

Castle looks over, slightly surprised at her being accommodating when a case this big is looming over them both. "Really?"

"Yeah," she said with a soft smile and a casual shrug of her shoulders while she steers.

 _She just told you that her work isn't the most important thing, that means something._ That voice tells him, but he shakes it away. It wouldn't be the first time he's gotten advice from her on raising his teenage daughter. She would know how Alexis would feel if her own father weren't there at such a big day like her graduation.

So, on a sigh, he looks back out the window as they pass into the small, suburban town of mid-state New York.

It's not hard to find where the body of the latest victim was found. Beckett simply has to maneuver down the main road cutting through what looks like the town's central square, where the local police already have roadblocks and traffic directors put up, with the local news channels already infesting the area like fruit flies. She pulls to a stop as close as she can, putting on her lights as she parks to signal to everyone that they're not just pedestrians wanting to see what's going on.

The two step out and move toward the tape, where the local police don't stop her as she flashes her badge from the waistband of her jeans, shown to them by lifting the side of her jacket. Letting them pass, they go under the tape and make for the cops surrounding a park bench in a grassy area, nestled between two trees. "Sergent?" She asks as she leads the way toward the crime scene, addressing the portly man looking as if he's in charge.

The man turns and extends his hand, relief washing through his middle-aged face when he sees that the cavalry has arrived. "Detective, thank god you're finally here." He says and extends his hand which she shakes with a nod of her head.

"My captain spoke to your superior about giving us access to the other bodies as well?" She asks, looking past the sergeant and over to the man laid out on the bench, a very large hole protruding out of the middle of his forehead where the bullet exited the skull.

"Yes, anything you need to get to the bottom of this." He says, his tone tight and twisted with more anxiety than he's probably experienced in his life.

But Beckett, this being a norm for her, simply gives the sergeant a nod and a purse of her lips. "Well, we need to examine the crime scene, if you don't mind."

"Go right ahead," The sergeant tells them and steps aside, following in tow as her and Castle move toward the body.

The time spent at the crime scene goes quickly. Everything about the body dump fits the MO; no witnesses, no evidence, signs of shock torture on the victim's limbs and signs of being restrained by the waist and wrists. It's when the two of them are on their way to the local police station to interview the woman picked up, a Veronica Epps, that the conversation picks up again.

"This doesn't make any sense," Castle says when they slow to a stop at an intersection. "First, he sticks to a six-month pattern of kidnapping couples. Then, he goes underground for ten years... then starts killing again one right after another? The last set of bodies were found three days ago and he kidnaps another couple right after?"

"Something must have happened to make him start to devolve, set him off." She theorizes as she presses down on the gas.

"And why would he break his MO now? Why would he leave only one of them alive?" Castle wracks his brain.

"Well," She starts with a heavy sigh, "let's think about it." She says, maneuvering through the small town and suburban shopping area. "The first couple he targeted he killed because he was having an affair."

"They fail the test, he kills them." Castle finishes.

"So..." she starts, "the only couple ever to pass his test was the Bradley's."

"A couple who had no secrets because they had been together for so long." He says, almost enviously. It's difficult to think about, how muddied the waters are between them, how much sloshing around and trudging through the muck they would have to do to get to where that couple was, living what was and still his dream life.

"They passed his test and he let them go."

"Well, what if only _he_ failed the test?" Castle says after a minute of them thinking silently to themselves. He's questioned what he means by a pinched brow from his partner and he's quick to start explaining as the thoughts come to him. "What if the couples he killed before said they didn't love each other after their secrets came out? What if _that's_ the test? What if, for whatever reason, whatever Veronica's fiance was hiding wasn't enough to make her stop loving him?"

"He admits he doesn't really love her, so the killer kills him but lets her go." Beckett finishes, clarifying what he's trying to say.

"Either that or... our killer is seriously devolving. He might have already kidnapped another couple for all we know."

"That's why," she begins as she turns into the parking lot of the police station, "we need to hurry up and figure this out while we have the chance."

Both of them entering the station, Beckett scans the room as she leads the way in, seeing most of the officers are out on their beat, with a receptionist fielding call after call from the press and other local officials frantically from her place at the front desk. Seeing the two of them, the receptionist waves them through as she answers another call on her headset. In the corner, unattended in a chair, next to a clear glass door leading to the station's kitchen area, a small white styrofoam cup limply hang from her pale face.

"I'm going to take the lead on this one, okay?" Beckett says, almost asks as she looks to her side where she finds her partner standing, closer to her than he was a few days ago. When she meets his eye, his face seeming meer inches from her, her breath catches. With his gaze on her, she can feel herself drawing strength from it. She's always felt stronger when he lets her know he has her back, as he is now. It's probably a mistake on his part, standing this close to her. He's always been very mindful to keep a respectful distance, especially lately.

But now, she can feel her body demanding that she simply lean back into him and let him embrace her with his arms.

She is forced to shake away the feeling when he nods, taking a large enough step back to be out of her immediate reach. "Yeah, go ahead." He murmurs.

Nodding to herself after she, once again, has to let the moment pass her by in lieu of focusing on the here and now, she looks back across the station to the petite woman sitting in a chair with her eyes down on the floor. Beckett moves through the desks over to her, slowing her pace when she approaches. "Veronica?" She asks in a light, friendly tone.

The woman responds with a simple jump of her head, her eyes moving in their direction before readjusting back down to the floor.

Beckett pulls up a chair in front of her and sits down, clasping her hands together and leaning forward on her thighs. "I'm detective Kate Beckett." She tells her, giving her a moment to mull over. "Are they making you comfortable? Do you need some more water, maybe?"

Veronica only responds with a sad shake of her head.

Beckett nods, "I understand that this is going to be difficult... but I'm going to have to ask you some questions about-"

"I didn't care." She whispers, her voice raspy and tired.

Beckett stops, focusing her ears. "I'm sorry?"

"That he had a son, I didn't care." Veronica says in a somewhat firmer voice, yet soiled with emotion.

"Is that why your fiance was killed?" Castle asks from his place a few feet behind his partner.

Veronica nods as her eyes squeeze shut when they flood with tears. "I loved him. I didn't care that he had an illegitimate son. I didn't care that he only agreed to move out here with me to get away from the rumors. I still loved him." She sobs.

Beckett watches, very painfully, for a minute as Veronica begins to cry, and after a minute to herself, she reaches over and puts her hand on Veronica's forearm as a show of support. "Veronica, is there anything you can tell us about the man who kidnapped you?"

The woman sniffles heavily and tries her best to sit up, running her palm up her cheek to wipe away the tracks of her tears. "I grew up in a small town like this. I moved to the city for college, so when I met Anthony, I talked him into moving out here. It was close enough to the city that he could drive back for work when he needed to. We just signed a sublet the day before when we went out to a bar here in town. We wanted to..." she trails off, rolling her tear-filled eyes.

"You wanted to celebrate your engagement."

"Anthony got us a bottle of whiskey and two glasses so we could celebrate on our own. We just moved up here, we don't know anybody."

"That must be why you were never reported missing." Castle thinks out loud.

Sorrowfully, Veronica nods as she looks past Beckett. "The whole town was talking about that murdered couple they found, we didn't pay any attention to it. We both just moved from the city, it's nothing new for us." She says with a shrug of her shoulders, making Beckett smile softly, understanding the mentality. "We both got pretty drunk. We're both lightweights." She says with another sad smile. "Next thing I remember was waking up in some basement. We were both shackled to these metal chairs and hooked up to lie detectors."

"What about the man that kidnapped you? Can you tell us anything about him?" Beckett asks, wanting to get her back on track before she loses her.

She shrugs her shoulders, "Tall, white, wore a black mask over his face... angry. I-I remember his voice was different the last time he came back. Like... he had a cold or something."

Beckett nods with a warm smile. "Thank you, Veronica. You did great."

* * *

The day is busy, with Castle and Beckett spending most of their day going over what little evidence left behind from the last two pairs of bodies. Phil and Marcy, the first couple kidnapped from town, were lifelong residents of the town, but only recently got engaged. Their past unhappiness in their relationship was a bit of an open secret around town, constantly fighting in their on-off-on again relationship. The only thing left behind by the killer were traces of lead in the latest victim's shoe treads, which could have been picked up anywhere.

"So, the last place we should go is probably the bar where they went the night they were kidnapped, ask around." Beckett thinks as they drive through town, slowly in the late afternoon traffic.

Castle nods, "You mean undercover?"

Beckett chuckles. "Why would we need to do that, Castle?" She asks with a smile.

"Well, usually when we go to bars during an investigation, it's usually undercover. And besides, a small town like this, I'm not sure the locals would willing to spill the town's secrets with us."

On a frustrated sigh, Beckett agrees. "You're probably right." She didn't want this investigation to get any more complicated than it already is. "Well..." she starts, an idea coming to mind, but it sends her heart sputtering inside her chest. "The killer is targeting recently engaged couples, right?"

Castle looks over to her with a quirked brow, curious. "Yeah?"

"Maybe we could... get more information i-if we um..." She doesn't want to say it.

"You want to go undercover as a recently engaged couple out to celebrate?"

"You have a better idea?" She defends herself.

With a sigh, feeling the car stop as she parks on the street on the town, Castle agrees, albeit reluctantly with a nod. "If you think you're up for it." He says and opens his door.

Swallowing what she can of her nerves, she steps out of her car and waits for him to round the front of the car to meet her on the sidewalk, just down the street from the bar where the last couples were seen. "It's a small town and this is the only bar, so it should be too hard." She tells him as they stop at the door to the bar.

It's going to be a long night. "So..." he hesitates, his heart squeezing with nervousness and anxiety. Even if it is just undercover, it wouldn't be the first time they've put themselves in a place neither of them were ready for in the name of keeping up an act. "How exactly are we going to pull this off? You don't have a ring." He points out.

Beckett lets out a breath, having solved the problem when the idea first popped into her mind. "Here," she says and pulls on the chain of her necklace, pulling out from underneath her t-shirt and reaching behind her neck to undo the clasp. Once the necklace holding her mother's ring comes undone, she brings the chain in front of her, but when the ring gets caught on the fabric of her shirt, one side of the chain slips from her hand and the ring tumbles off and bounces onto the concrete of the sidewalk. "No!" She cries.

Castle's eyes follow the ring as it bounces and rolls, eventually stopping against his foot. Without thinking of nothing else but manners, he kneels down and takes the ring in his fingers and lifts it up to her.

But when he does, Beckett's heart folds in on itself.

Seeing him down on his knee like this, even now, sends a firebombing of images through her mind. And there are a million different synapses in her mind telling her it's not real, that he's just picking up the ring. But her heart, wanting it so badly she can't deny, can only see him down on one knee with a ring in his hand as he looks up to her only briefly. Her heart is pounding and thumping, galloping violently in her heart as his eyes catch her's.

He should have thought this through. "Here," he says when he stands back up, handing her the ring.

Beckett is forced to let out her breath when she takes the ring from him and slips it onto her finger. "Yeah, thanks." She tells him, feeling the ring slack a bit on her finger, a bit big. "You ready?" She asks, avoiding eye contact after the last moment, waiting for it to pass in her heart's memory.

"Whenever you are," he says with a nervous smirk.

With a smile, she makes for the door to the bar.

* * *

 _A/N: Rushing out the door to post this again, forgive any mistakes. Relying on Grammarly to tell me the truth. Last scene was the one I was referring to. Have had it in my head for a while. ;)_


	17. Chapter 17

The air is different from the bars in the city as she leads the way toward the bartender.

Just normal town folk out for a drink, wanting to wash away the tires of their work, their problems with their bosses and drink away the taste of their crafts. She never was one to go out an put herself in New York's nightlife, having seen its true underbelly far too many times. With the responsibility of babysitting her alcoholic father thrust upon her in her teenage years, she, thankfully, never developed a taste for the nihilistic party life before the life of a cop took hold. The only place she ever finds herself enjoying spending any time at is The Old Haunt... and it's not for the drinks.

The bar isn't empty, but it's not as crowded as a bar like this in the city would be.

Beckett sees the bartender serve the elderly man, clearly a regular, with a smile and her thumb digs harshly into her mother's ring adorning her finger. She's never, ever, worn this ring. It's her mother's.

But Castle is following close behind her, as he always does, as she makes for the bartender. After passing another couple sitting at a circular table near a support beam, Beckett looks over her shoulder to him, the edges of her lips turned up in just the slightest of a sly smile. It's smiles like that that catch most of his attention because it's those types of smiles that are meant for only him to see. She could be just getting into the act, putting herself in the mindset of being in this uncomfortable undercover operation.

And in truth, she doesn't feel in complete control because she knows that if they're going to pull this off, she's going to have to let go of a bit of her pull. Which is exactly what she does when she meets his eyes and his all too nervous smirk as he pretends not to notice her looking him in the eye and look at something else. After a moment, and a few more steps toward the bar, her hand shoots behind her and grabs onto his, squeezing his hand tight enough to where he has no choice but to hold it back.

In an instant, everything that can lock up in his system locks up at the sudden feeling of her warm... perfectly shaped hand grasping onto his this suddenly. It's like it was made to fit his. Quickly, he looks up at her again, questioning if she's in her right mind with his brow.

"We're engaged, remember?" She whispers to him as she pulls on his hand to bring up in lock-step with her as they approach the bar. "You've been engaged before. Didn't you hold hands?"

"Only when the press wanted to take pictures." He mutters, hopefully keeping it under his breath enough.

Beckett smiles a friendly smile at the bartender when she makes it to the bar. "Welcome, you two," he says and puts down two napkins on the bar. "What can I get you?"

Just let go. Their undercover, that's it.

Beckett moves her hand around in his to interlock their fingers together and shifts her weight to lean into her partner heavily. "Well, we are out celebrating tonight." She says in a giddy tone, waiting for the bartender to respond with a look. And when he does, she lifts her hand up to show him her mother's ring. "Rick here finally popped the question." She says with a smile.

"Oh, yeah?" The bartender asks, looking over to Castle with a raised brow of approval, conversing with the patrons as any good bartender would.

And getting committed to the act, Castle purses his lips and cracks his neck in a move of boasting as he leans forward on his elbows, keeping his hand interlocked with hers. "Yep," he begins and looks over to her, seeing her smiling back at him... almost lovingly. If he was in any other mindset, he'd just let himself get lost in that soft hazel gaze. "Took her down to the aquarium... got down on one knee _right_ in the middle of the tunnel." He tells the story to the bartender, looking back across the bar.

"Nice," he says with a nod. "Well, congratulations. First round on the house, huh? Now uh... what'll it be?"

"Umm..." Beckett says, having just been thrown for a bit of a spin at his story, looks back over to her faux-fiance and shrugs her shoulders. "Actually, we'd just like two glasses... and a bottle of vodka." She says, looking back over to the bartender when Castle's eyes widen. "Dealer's choice."

With a chuckle, the bartender reaches under the counter and grabs a bottle and two small shot glasses, setting them down in front of the two. "Haven't seen you in town before. Passing through?"

Quickly thinking, Castle nods over to his partner as she grabs the shot glasses with one hand. "We're just out here looking at some properties, looking to settle down.'

"It's a nice area." The bartender replies.

"He-uh..." Beckett stutters, pulling on his arm with the hand that has the shot glasses in it, getting his attention. "That was _before_ they found a dead body in the center of town, _and_ before that last couple popped up before that, okay? Forgive me, honey," she lets it slip, and making his heart skip violently in his chest at the sound, "but we're not moving to Stephen King's personal playground."

"Oh, it's not every day." The bartender says with a shake of his head.

"Hey," a patron from the other end of the bar speaks up loudly, getting everyone's eyes. "Two couples get kidnapped in less than a week, kills three people, and what do the police have? Nothing. I'm thinking of getting out of here myself." He says and lifts his beer up.

"Calm down, Bruce. The local police have it handled, alright? Now, will you _please_ stop scaring my customers?"

"Yeah, yeah... police around here are incompetent." The patron mutters.

Beckett turns back to Castle, who's looking over his shoulder at her, waiting for her to take the lead again. "S-so..." she begins, "small town like this, no one has any clue as to who it might be?"

The bartender shrugs as he goes about rearranging things. "We hear rumors but... most people like to keep to themselves, you know? Anyway, you two enjoy, huh?"

Beckett smiles thankfully at him and lifts the glasses to him, leaving Castle to take the neck of the bottle and follow her, heading toward a small empty circular table near the hall leading to what is probably the restrooms. But as she steps around another couple of guys unwinding after work, she lets her fiance catch up to her side by missing a step, and looks over at him.

"The aquarium?" She asks incredulously.

Castle looks over to her with a crooked brow. "What?"

Beckett sets the glasses down on the table and takes her place upon one of the stools. "Please, don't tell me you proposed to one of your ex-wives surrounded by a bunch of _fish."_

He feels insulted, but shouldn't. He's beaten himself up over it enough over the years. She doesn't know the story behind it, and thinking of it, she'd probably make even more fun of him if she did. It was stupid at the time, it still is now. "No... it wasn't Meredith or Gina."

"Well, where'd you come up with that, Castle? It didn't sound like something you just came up with off the top of your head."

With a hard sigh, he sits down on the stool next to her, his eyes down on one of the shot glasses closest to him. "Am I drinking alone, as usual? I mean, you _are_ on duty." He asks.

Raising her brow, she reaches for the bottle and unscrews the top, pouring two shots. "I'm undercover, Castle. And besides," she says and takes her glass, smiling lightly over to him, "I won't tell if you won't."

Only slightly reluctantly, thinking back to just a few mornings ago when she stopped him pleadingly not to drink her out of his life, he lifts the glass she just poured him, matching the height she's holding hers. "I thought you had a problem with me drinking."

"I have a problem with you drinking to numb yourself of heartbreak, Castle." She says in a casual tone as she puts her shot glass in front of his. "So?"

Another hard breath out, hardening the twist in his stomach at the unnerving, he downs the vodka from the shot glass and braces his lungs as it burns his throat. When he opens his eyes again after having them slam shut at the sensation, he sees her holding the back of her hand to her mouth, the empty shot glass in her hand.

"It was Kyra." He says in a strain as he sets the shot glass back down next to the bottle. She looks back up to him with the burn still lingering in her throat and sets her glass down to the table, wondering what he means. "The aquarium thing, it was for Kyra."

There's a moment of choking on words between them, and when he realizes it's going to be his job to break it, he reaches up and grabs the vodka, pouring two more shots.

"I never asked her, if that's what you're wondering." He says and quickly downs his own shot.

"Uh, no... no, it wasn't." She says and hesitates before downing her own shot. After it's down, she sucks her teeth and sets her glass back down. "I was just wondering why the aquarium. You have your first date there or something?" She asks him and reaches for the bottle, taking her turn in pouring their shots this time.

Waiting for her, and being given not courage, but what he knows is carelessness as to what she thinks thanks to the alcohol slowly taking hold, he leans forward on his elbows and folds his arms together. "We were at a friend's place one night when we mentioned to each other that neither of us had ever been to Liberty Island. So, that weekend, I planned a trip out there. You know, just to be tourists in our own city. _I_ was excited, but... when we got to the dock, she started shaking and was freaking out. I took her home and she admitted that she had a paralyzing fear of the ocean. Something about almost drowning when she was a kid."

He lets the rest of the story fall momentarily as he throws his third shot down his throat, punishing himself for his past stupidity.

But Beckett, she leaves her own shot sitting on the table as she listens. "And... the aquarium?"

Letting out a harsh breath as he sets his shot glass down, flicking it a few inches across the table with his middle finger. "I had planned on taking her there as a surprise. I wanted to propose to her in the tunnel of the aquarium, kind of a... facing your fear thing. I had this..." he trails off, looking away from the table he had his eyes down on, rolling them, "stupid speech planned out about how... she wouldn't have anything to be scared of as long as we were together."

Her heart... she doesn't think it's ever ached this much for him. She always knew he had it in him to be that sweet and thoughtful, but hearing him tell her first hand is a different experience.

But Castle, faced with the stupid mistakes of his past self, rolls his eyes to himself and shakes his head, reaching for the bottle again to pour his fourth shot, leaving Beckett to quickly down her third. "Stupid, I know." He says as he sets the bottle back upright.

"No," She answers and grabs the bottle. "No, I actually thought it was really sweet." Castle doesn't respond and keeps his eyes trained on the shot glass in front of him, the alcohol sitting in it enticing him, waiting for her to finish her compliment with its usual backhandedness. But after a minute of silence, he hears it never come. And it's then that he looks up to see her still smiling softly at him.

"Yeah, well..." he trails off, waiting for a moment before he throws his shot down his throat again. "Wasn't worth much, seeing how it turned out in the end."

"It was still thoughtful, Castle." She says to him as he takes another drink. And the alcohol is already starting to affect her, even though he's still a few shots ahead of her. A thought chases through her mind that she should really decide once and for all how she feels about the situation she lead the two of them into; excited and proud at the fact that she lured him into drinking his way into feeling how he did a year ago, or guilty and shameful for the same reason.

"Well, maybe fate had other plans." She says, almost jokingly as she leans forward on her folded arms with a smile.

But Castle, he just chuckles bitterly as he pours them both another pair of shots. "Fate could have let me in on its plans before dragging me through two divorces." He says and sets the bottle back upright. "And since when do _you_ believe in fate? I thought that was kind of my thing."

Beckett laughs softly as she takes her shot glass in her hand. "It's kind of hard to survive a bullet to the chest and chalk it up to nothing short of a miracle."

"Yeah, yeah, you don't have to remind me, Beckett. I was there." He says harshly behind his own shot glass, wanting her to stop talking about it. He stops his rant before it takes off by tossing the vodka down his throat, hoping to literally swallow the words.

Watching him throw back shot after shot like this, a part of her wants to snatch the bottle from him and catch up to equal the playing field, another part of her wants to do it so they can get back on track as to what brought them into this bar in the first place, and another part of her wants to just let him have at it, because after all, he's drinking probably because of her anyway.

"You know, Castle, hearing what you had planned out for Kyra..." she says as she takes the bottle from his hand and pours another dose of alcohol, "kind of makes me wonder."

"Wonder what?"

She has to throw back the shot she just poured herself in order to ask it, but it seems to work, thinking of getting the question out will make the burn go away faster. "Did you have one for us?"

Surprisingly, even to him in his hazy state, chuckles in his throat as he lifts his shot glass to his lips. "Beckett, I was _born_ with my head in the clouds. I thought me bugging you this long would have taught you there's a fine line between being a hopeless romantic and simply being a stupid dreamer."

"Is that your long, self-deprecating way of saying you did?" She asks him, not giving in an inch into his own self-pity.

His eyes turn away from her and down to the wood of the table, silently answering her question by refusing to.

When Castle starts to slam his knuckle against the table, knocking harshly right next to his glass, Kate can feel her heart race in the same hard thump he's making with his knuckle. "You want to tell me what it is?"

"You're not going to like it."

"Oh, well then all the more reason, Castle!" She says, waving her shot glass around in front of her. "I mean, come on, if you're really planning on ' _moving on',"_ she practically insults with a pair of air quotes to mock him, "then you shouldn't have any problem tell-"

"The cemetery." He says loudly, still not looking her in the eye.

"Like," she starts, her heart becoming a violent, poisonous snake coiling itself around her lungs, "the cemetery where I got shot?"

After a long tense moment, he finally looks up to her, bracing himself for her reaction. She's looking at him with a slack jaw and a straight brow, almost the same expression she would have if he was actually dumb enough to think she'd ever be in a place to want to spend the rest of her life with him. "I told you that you weren't going to like it."

"Ca-aslte.." she stutters in a shaking breath, "why on Earth would you think that it would be a good idea to propose to me in the same place that-"

"Maybe I was trying to be poetic!" He interrupts her, leaning up straight in his stool. She feels her words leave her at the sight of him going after her like this. "Maybe I knew that that place represented so much pain for the both of us, where your life took a turn for the absolute worst. And maybe I wanted to make a place where your life took a turn for the best... so it would represent-" he cuts himself off, not wanting to humiliate himself more than he already has, and picks up another shot, hiding behind it as he throws it back. "It doesn't matter, it's stupid."

Beckett feels her head crane as she hides behind the curtain of her hair. "I didn't think of it like that."

With yet another bitter chuckle, Castle shakes his head to himself and points to himself with his glass in his hand. "Stupid dreamer, remember?"


	18. Chapter 18

"Wow, three years?"

"You two knew each other that long before you finally started seeing each other?" The man's wife asks the two of them with a glass of white wine in her hand.

Beckett smiles and leans over in her stool to mash side into her faux-fiance's and latches onto his arm, playfully. She can feel his lips press against her head for a quick second and it sends a violent jolt through her nerves, not expecting him to play into their roles that much. She thought she was crossing a line by grabbing onto his arm. For both of them, they seem to be pushing the line forward every time their bodies come in contact, starting from her grabbing onto his hand as they walked into this bar as fiance.

"Yep," Beckett chirps with a smile. It feels too genuine to get rid of. Even if it is a roleplay, with him, she's far too glad to be this way with him. Almost to the point where she doesn't want Gene and Linda to go back to their own table just so she has to keep up the act with him.

"I was at a book release party for my last Derrick Storm novel when we first met." Castle begins the story, still waiting for his repercussion for chastely pressing his lips to her hair as she leaned into him.

"Someone was using his books as inspiration to stage killings, so I had to bring Rick in for questioning."

Linda's smile goes agape in astonishment as they begin their story. "Really?" She asks.

Beckett nods happily as Castle continues. "Truth is I hadn't written anything for months after killing off Derrick Storm. Worst block I've ever had in my life. I met her," he says and puts a hand over the one still latching onto his arm, "and suddenly, I couldn't stop."

To her honest amazement, Beckett briefly drops the facade and looks over to him, their faces separated by just a few inches. "Really?" Castle looks over to her with his usual cool smirk. "You never told me that."

Castle chuckles softly and looks back to Gene and Linda. "The night we met, I ended up writing the first five chapters of Nikki Heat without stopping, she was that amazing."

She forgets their purpose for the story for a moment and pushes herself out of his side and looks at him with her face fallen into a blank, wondering stare. "How come you never told me this?" She asks him. It's an honest question, thinking that he wouldn't be able to stop from telling her that simply meeting her and being around her helped him get over the worst writer's block he's ever had, that she had that much of an impact on him and inspired him that much... that he thought so much and so highly of her, even back then, that he was able to write so much of a book in one night.

He really was that deeply in love with her, wasn't he?

But Castle just keeps his smirk casual and looks back toward the couple across from them that had asked to share a table after Castle had sparked a conversation with Gene, Linda's husband of ten years. "Took us years to admit that we liked each other."

Castle looks back toward her, throwing her a cue to keep the story going. But Beckett's heart and mind are spiraling into a whirlpool of emotions, going deeper into a hole and looking into things that have nothing to them to look into at all. Like when he ran into her old apartment after that bomb had just gone off, was it really only because he was her partner and was there on the street, or did he run head first into those flames with nothing but the coat on his back because he loved her?

How long has she left him there with his affections just bouncing right off of her? She's been trying to get through to him for four days now and it's been the most painful agony she can remember going through, just having her attempts at something more bounce right off of that emotional armor. But he put up with it for all those years, waiting for her to come around.

"U-uh..." Beckett stutters with a quick shake of her head, "Yeah, we uh..." she awkwardly continues for him, "we took our time, that's for sure, but uhm..." she says, looking between the couple, but then back over to Castle, "once we did we fell pretty hard for each other."

"You set a date yet?" Linda asks.

Beckett shakes her head, giving Castle a visual cue. "We're just enjoying being engaged, for now. We're up here looking at some properties, looking to get out of the city."

"Good idea," Gene says to him, lifting his own glass of scotch. "I always hated the city."

"Hey, I'm looking to get _into_ the city with this killer on the loose." Linda says to her husband.

"What have you heard?" Beckett asks, getting into the conversation quickly before they lose the topic.

"I've heard that this psycho is kidnapping married couples, so I'm keeping my eyes peeled." Gene says over his glass of scotch, looking cautiously around the bar.

"I've also heard that tell that he's using a taxi service to kidnap drunken couples, so..." His wife tells him as she takes his scotch from him, "I'm cutting you off. Okay, honey?"

"Taxi service?" Beckett asks, somewhat wondering how that detail got out. "Do they have a taxi service that runs out here?"

"Most people run uber around here, actually." Gene points out.

"It's a small town, who do you think it might be?" Castle asks just before downing another shot of vodka.

"There are a few rich kids that live outside of town. Their parents build summer homes out near the lakes and leave their kids there when they don't want to bother with them anymore. I'm thinking it's one of them acting out." Gene answers.

"We've seen that profile before, haven't we, babe?" Beckett asks, knocking herself into his shoulder again.

And briefly losing himself in the alcohol, he looks over to her with a raised brow. "Is that supposed to be some sort of slight? Because I will have you know I have spent eighteen straight years doting on my little girl."

"Oh!" Linda jolts up, catching the attention of everyone at the table by looking at her watch. "Gene, I almost forgot. We have to pick up Hannah from my mother's."

"Right!" He says and climbs off his stool. "It was great meeting you two." He says and extends his hand across the table to Castle with a smile. Castle shakes it with a smile in return while Beckett shakes his wife's hand, thanking both of them for sharing a drink. They both smile across the bar after they pay their tab and wave as they walk out the door.

"You think we'll be finding their bodies in the morning?" Castle asks as he pours himself another shot.

Sliding off her stool to slide back over to where she was before, she sighs. "The killer is targeting engaged couples, Castle, to test them before they get married, remember? Those two are already married and have children."

"You think his theory of a needy rich kid holds any water?"

Beckett reaches for the half empty bottle of vodka and pours herself another shot, the first since Gene and Linda had sat down. "Not really. We're not looking someone who's punishing his parents for not paying attention to them, Castle." She explains and takes her shot glass in her hand then looks over to him. "If he feels the need to put engaged couples through a test, we're looking for someone who's mentally unstable and has been through a bitter divorce."

Castle, waiting for her to give up the bottle of vodka, deadpans a stare off into the distance and waits for her to throw down her shot of alcohol before rebutting. "You realize you just pegged _me_ as the killer, right?"

Beckett smiles over the sting of the vodka in her throat slides the bottle his way. "I did, didn't I?"

"I see your game, Detective." He says as he takes back the bottle. "You bring me in here, get me drunk, and I fess up to all the murders and you get to go home the hero." She laughs as she watches him feign being serious for a laugh as he waves the bottle around in the air.

Beckett looks him over before continuing, "No, I'm after something else by bringing you in here, Rick."

Castle hiccups as he pours another shot. "What's-" he stops as he hiccups again, "what's that?"

Her heart goes into her throat as she looks into his eyes once he's settled and waits for her answer. She wishes there wasn't so much thicket to cut through to get them to where they should be. She wishes there wasn't so much work to do to get them there. She's been working toward getting herself there for too long, now it seems that, even now, she has to work twice as hard for both of them.

"Why couldn't you just come talk to me?"

Castle's brow pinches and his dilated eyes narrow. "What do you mean?"

It's been scratching at her heart, that he was just willing to give up on her, give up on them and walk away without a fight. Even if it was their last fight to end them once and for all. He was just going to walk away and give up. He wasn't even going to go tell her anything. She had to go to him after weeks of not hearing from him, and she had to force the topic out there.

"You knew for weeks that I lied to you, Castle, and you just left. Why wouldn't you just come talk to me?"

"Because talking about things is something that you don't do." He stabs with a brutal knife of honesty as he downs his shot of vodka.

It hurts, most of all because she knows he's right. "What if I wanted to talk about it?" She asks him after a moment of pause and grabs the bottle from him.

"Beckett, we've never talked about anything before. I mean, we kissed for god's sake and we pretended it never happened."

"All right, fine." Beckett says, her voice dripping with frustration as she throws herself upright in her stool. "Let's talk about it then. We kissed."

Castle, thoroughly drunk after having just thrown down another shot, is tensing his throat and is looking at her with his neck cranes downward. "Because the guy with the gun wasn't buying our drunken couple act. It wasn't real."

Beckett rolls her eyes and deflates her shoulders. "Do you honestly believe that or is that what you want to believe because you're angry with me?"

"Beckett, it was just to convince the guy that we were just a lost drunken couple. It was just pretend. You probably didn't even like it."

"Castle, I was _there._ Trust me, it was _not_ pretend." She argues and leans forward, putting herself closer to him and Castle supports himself with his elbows on the table. "And what have I told you about making so many stupid assumptions?" She asks in a softer voice and an even softer smile.

Castle, lost in the mixture of alcohol and the softness of her voice and the sight of her lips turns up in a smile. And despite what he's telling her and himself, he can recall perfectly what those lips feel like. "What are you talking about?"

"I never said I didn't like it, Castle." A cold sweat rushes over his skin, his already alcohol-laden blood flushing over his skin at her revelation. He's stunned and all rebuttals and retorts have left him. And her soft smile and her leaning forward, the signs, true or not, are flashing brightly in his face. "In fact, I um..." she softens her voice even more, looking down and sliding her hand across the table to brush her fingers down his knuckles, "I kind of liked it." She says looking down at his hand closed around his empty shot glass.

He's drunk and is aware of it. He's also aware of the road she is turning them down. A week ago, this isn't how he wanted it to happen. A few days ago, this isn't how he wanted it to start. He wanted it to happen honestly. Not when they are both drunk, pretending to be engaged to get information in a serial killer.

"Kind of?" He asks as he feels himself falling forward.

Beckett's eyes shoot back up to look at him and the thickness of the air hits her suddenly, making her heart pound only once before it goes numb. "I liked it a lot."

"Even though you were still with Josh?"

His name brings a sour taste to the back of her throat. "Please don't say that name now, Castle."

"Believe me, I take no joy in it." He says back with a lift of his brow.

She chuckles under her shallow breath and smiles softly, still edging toward him as he leans over the table. It's then that she feels his fingers move against her's on the table, clumsily moving to entwine their fingers together on the table, a show of intimacy that she wanted but wasn't prepared for. She looks down to the table at their joined hands with his thumb brushing a long, smooth motion against the back of her hand. Something about the sight makes her heartache, what she could have had if she hadn't been so cowardly.

When she looks back up and sees she's leaned even closer toward him, she finds her voice. "Rick," she speaks just above a whisper. She can feel him just inches away pause in his leaning forward. "If you're going to kiss me," she gives his hand a tight squeeze, "do it slowly."

Castle lets out a short breath and slackens and retightens his grip on her hand out of complete nervousness and feels himself fall forward just a bit more, his head swimming.

"I want to remember every moment of it." She says, just an inch away from his lips.

His eyes drift shut and he squeezes her hand again. The first thing she feels is the warm skin of his nose brushing against hers, and she tucks away the memory and gasps for another breath over her already straining lungs. He's taking it agonizingly slow, just like she wanted. After a very long few seconds, she hears his lips open and feels his warm breath tickle her lips as she opens her own lips to him. She squeezes his hand tightly as the first instance of his lips brush against hers, feeling him almost stop at the feeling.

She lets him set the brutally slow pace of their first kiss as he presses his lips fully against hers. She sucks in a long breath as he deepens the kiss from their open lips brushing against each other to their mouths melding together in a kiss so passionate and intense, the moments and small little feelings she had tucked away to remember are gone. His silk lips are pressed against hers in a tight kiss that's pouring so many emotions into her that she can't consume them all. A deep longing for her that's been dying to be expressed, firey anger at her for keeping so much from him, a painful heartbreak that's been aching at the pit of his soul because of her, she can feel all of it radiating off of his lips as he sustains their first kiss.

After a very long amount of time, he finally releases her but doesn't back away. "Rick," she tries.

But he can't hear her as his other hand moves up and cups her jaw, his fingers digging softly into the back of her scalp and pulls her forward to take her lips back in another passionate kiss that doesn't show any patience or hesitation at all. And at the feeling of his lips wanting domination over her, her body melting into a pool of jitters and butterflies, she reaches for his shirt and pulls at at the the top button, fisting the fabric and yanking him forward and deepening the kiss as much as she can to burn the feeling into her memory.

They finally relent from each other after another long kiss shared, but neither of them moves back to look each other in the eye. He just keeps his hand on her cheek and she unballs her fist from his shirt to lay flat on his chest. Kate rubs her nose softly against his twice before she leans back to see his expression fallen, his eyes dark and his pupils heavily dilated from the alcohol poisoning both their reasoning skills.

"Are we still pretending?" He finally asks.

Kate takes the opening of his shirt in her fist again and pulls him forward again, stopping an inch away from his lips. "I'm through pretending, Rick."

* * *

 _A/N: Long time, I know. ;)_

 _Originally, I was going to leave this chapter at a much later place, but the timeline would have been messed up. I'll update again as soon as I can. Let me know and forgive my making you wait. Thanks for the ups!_


	19. Chapter 19

_A/N: Semi m-rated scene coming up. Not enough to raise the rating, but enough to warn you about. Enjoy._

* * *

Both of them know it's wrong, a violation of everything they've worked toward in their relationship, a physical lampoon to all the honesty they've fought with to get things right between them these past four days. They both know that the other knows, even as Kate pulls him by the hand down the back hallway of the bar and looks over her shoulder to him to gauge his reaction to this. He's enough shots into that bottle of vodka they left open on their table to the point where when she looks at him and rounds the corner of the hallway, he stumbles over his own well-tied shoes and slams into the opposite wall.

She, probably more than him in his heavily inebriated state, knows that this is wrong. Even as she bypasses the men and women's restroom doors, and eyes the door at the end of the hall with a handicapped sign on the wall, she knows that if it was him taking the lead and they went through with it, she would probably never forgive him.

But the fact that she knows she's going to end up paying for in the end is that she knows that he'd never... _ever..._ do that. And as her hand latches onto the knob of the handicapped bathroom, she massages his hand with her's, her emotionally hindered moral compass pumping hard the brakes of the situation she's yanking them into. But when she feels him stumble to regain himself behind her and at the same moment as she's about to turn and say they shouldn't go through with this, she feels his chest press against her back and his arm coil around midsection wantingly. What breaks her is his breath going lightly through her hair and passed her ear as his lips fall against the back of her neck.

And all the images and feelings from her long repeated dream from the nights before flood the walls of her mind, and every longing desire that she's denied for all these years sparks in her body and leaves her no option and no other way out.

Pushing out a long, almost frustrated sigh, Kate angrily flings the door to the handicapped bathroom open, let's Rick's hand go to grab onto the seam of his dark grey dress shirt, pulls him ahead of her through the open door, his drunken state making it that much easier to fling his large frame around her, and continues to push him forward as she steps through the door, closes it shut behind her and turns the lock on the knob, her eyes never leaving his, locked together as he waits for the right sign to pounce.

And the sign is the moment that her fingers turn the lock on the knob.

Rick stumbles forward with a large step and pushes her against the door with his body, pinning her helplessly as his lips go to hers to vent out four years of reservation. She kisses him with matching intensity and increasing fervor while her hand runs her fingers through his hair, taking fistfuls of it with each wanting motion of their enjoined lips. A hot moan erupts from her chest when he presses his lips against hers in a hard kiss that moves her head to the side just as his wandering hands and jealous fingers dig into the back of her thighs and pulls her legs up and around his waist, leaving her supported nothing more than his hips pressing against her's.

She couldn't stop this now even if every single moral fiber in her body screamed at her in a singular shout right now to do so.

She vices him with her legs and digs her fingers into the back of his scalp with one hand and pulls his shoulders toward her with the other, his mouth still going unsated while he kisses her ungracefully and untimed, their lips going off-kilter and ill-tempered with each other. When he sucks at her bottom lip just as she opens her mouth to kiss him again, her body jolts violently at the feeling and makes her legs twinge around him, pulling another loud, deep moan from the depths of her chest that echos quickly off the linoleum and tile of the small bathroom.

When the sound fates and it's just his breath going down her light grey long sleeve t-shirt, his lips bite at her cheek and push her head up to expose her neck. It makes her heart explode and her chest mewl frustratingly against his that's still pressing her against the door and her skin crawl with impatience at what he knows he's going for next. And as his lips slide down her jawline, planting hard kiss after kiss against her cheek, she can feel her hand on the back of his head pulling him down to quicken his pursuit. His lips stop finally at her pulse point, just between the column of her throat and her neck and wantingly latch on like a vampire.

Her body sends another violent shiver through her as he lavishing his tongue against her pulse point. His hand squeezes her left thigh as he focuses his lips massage her neck, enough to distract her to where when his hand slides underneath her shirt and around to her back, her lungs suck in as much air as they can take in in a frightened surprise at the feeling of his hands finally finding her bare skin.

She hopes she's not too drunk to remember all of this.

His hand enviously feels at the warm patch of skin at the small of her back while both her hands dedicate themselves to running her fingers through his hair, taking fistfuls of it between her fingers as he sucks and pricks at her neck. In one long breath out, she relaxes her jittering body and cranes her neck to press her lips to his jawline, rough and scratchy from when he shaved this morning. Her hands move to roam his back as she struggles to return his affections he's assaulting her with. Her lips move to kiss the skin exposed by his collar between his neck and his shoulder as he continues to obsess over her pulse point.

Her new motions seem to stir something in him as he shivers against her and moves finally away from her neck and shoots back up to steal her lips back, the air of the alcohol going to mix with the taste of the same alcohol in her own mouth. Her hands grasp his neck and pull him forward for a moment before she decides to just snake her arms around his neck fully just as both his hands travel to her back and start to edge her shirt up, exposing her midriff.

"How come you aren't stopping me?" He says into her mouth.

She takes his lips for another long kiss that she moans against before replying against his lips. "It feels too amazing to stop."

His groans as his hips press against her again and her legs squeeze him in kind, "So we agree that this is all wrong?" He asks around another kiss.

"Completely." She answers in the middle of another kiss.

But he stops it at her answer and pulls back for the first time since she yanked him in here. "Is this worth the regret and awkward silence we'll have to deal with then?" He asks her, his hair frazzled and messy from her hands and his lips pink and puffy from her.

"I've wanted this for way too long to regret it, Castle." She tells him with a small, panting smile just before she swoops forward to capture his lips back and moves her hands to grab the top of the opening of his shirt.

But he seems to still show some hesitation as he gives her a quick moan from the back of his throat and pulls away only when she lets his lips go. "Since when have you wanted this?"

Honest anger and frustration fires inside of her as she rolls her neck and her eyes with a loud groan, "Ugh," she drones, the patch of skin he obsessed over still tight and tingling from his saliva.

How many times does she have to tell him? Is his skull really this thick?

Taking hold of the sides of his shirt just below the collar, she flexes all of her muscles, as weak as they are from him, and yanks. " _How"_ she rips off the top button, " _many"_ she exclaims through clenched teeth " _times"_ goes the third button "have I _told_ you" she hisses and rips open the first half of his shirt, exposing his heaving yet broad chest. It's then that she puts her hands on his chest for the first time, eager, but only to shove him back away from the door he pinned her against and watch him as he stumbles through the ajar stall door. His back slams open the door and the sound echos loudly in the bathroom as she struggles to regain her footing and her shaky legs struggle to hold her upright. He falls back onto the toilet and ends up sitting down, his shirt ripped half open, his hair frizzy and undone, his hands hanging in the air and his head swimming as she takes a long stride into the stall. She moves to straddle him and fling the stall door closed and rove her hands over his chest as she finishes what she was saying, "not to make so many god damn assumptions?"

His head swimming and his vision already swimming, he's far too weak to fight back as she puts her arms around his neck again and puts her lips on his neck again. And after that, he can feel his body take over... and his mind leaves him... before it all goes black.

* * *

He can feel his eyes want to open, but his aching head won't let them.

"Cas..." A voice fades off in the distance as his vision begins to go from dark to blurred.

" _Cas..."_ The voice becomes clearer as his aching, swollen head starts to jolt and slosh around.

He starts to hear some commotion and moving as if someone is kicking frantically against the ground in front of him. He hasn't felt this way since Gina left. He must have gone so far overboard that the lifeboats left him behind a long time ago. He finds the first of his voice over his slime coated mouth in the form of a long, aching groan.

" _Castle!"_ He finally hears clearly. "Castle, wake up!" His ears and brain finally reconnect to hear her, even as his body is still starting to respond. " _Rick,_ speak to me, damn it!" He hears her kick at the ground.

"Beckett?" His brain asks as he finally manages to lift his head up from being slumped over. His blurry and swimming vision still struggle to focus, but all he can make out in front of him is the hazy outline of a woman sitting in a chair in front of him. "Ugh..." He groans achingly again.

He can hear Beckett let out a deep sigh of what sounds like relief. "Oh, thank god you're okay."

"What happened last night?" He asks and reaches up to rub his forehead to try and wrangle in his swollen head.

But his hand is stopped just short of his face by the feeling of something cold and metal latched onto his wrist. His eyes snap open again and his brain, still throwing off the effects of the vodka. His vision finally focuses fully as he looks down to his wrist to see, clamped around it, a metal shackle, chained to the metal chair he's sitting in, with the chain being welded to the arm just below the armrest. His eyes go to his other wrist to find it shackled just like the other, then to his waist, where he can see a large belt, lined with leather, secured around his midsection.

"Castle," Beckett tries.

But he's already too frantic to reach. "What the hell is going on?" He asks as he pulls effortlessly at his bindings, the chains snapping tight just ten inches or so above the arm of the chair.

"Castle!" She tries again with more force to get him to at least listen to her as he starts to panic.

"What is this?! Get me out of here!" He exclaims as he tries at the metal belt secured around his stomach. It's then that he tries unknowingly to stand up out of the chair, only to feel the belt around him stop him, feeling the chains secured to the belt stopping him just short of standing upright. In a crouched position, with bent knees, he snaps at the shackles around his wrists, helplessly.

"Castle! I've tried!" Kate tries again over his panicking. "These chains aren't coming loose and the chairs are bolted to the floor!"

Having finally heard her, he slumps down, snapping at the left shackle in pointless frustration again. "What the hell..." He says as his eyes start to go around the room, still not having looked at his partner sitting across from him in the same situation.

The room they're in is dark except for a light on above them, a small light coming from beneath a door in the right corner of the room. From where he sits, Castle can see they're sitting in the middle of a concrete room with four concrete pillars and the chairs sitting between the four. The next thing he notices are the fuse boxes attached to the two pillars on each side of the pillars next to their chairs and a set of large wires running from the fuse boxes to the chairs. The last thing he can see from his position is a set of three lights running downward just below the fuse boxes.

"Beckett, how'd we..." he loses his voice when his eyes finally find her, sitting in her chair with the same clothes she had on the night before, her features that of a frightened kitten, and a large line of dried blood running from the top of her head all the way down her cheek. "Kate, what hap-" he stops when he feels the shackle stop his hand from reaching for her. He looks panicking from his hand to the woman he needs to reach for. "What happened?"

Her eyes close and her head starts to shake as she throws herself back in her chair. "This is all my fault."

"What happened?" He asks again. "The last thing I remember we were..." he trails off, trying hard to think, "we were uh... talking to that married couple, I... I can't remember their names."

Her eyes find him again, "Y-you... don't remember..." She trails off again.

"Beckett," he begins, looking around and finally putting the pieces together. "Beckett, please don't tell me that we were kidnapped by-"

"The honeymoon killer." She finishes. "He was driving the car that the bar called for us. He had a mask pulled over his face, so when I got in I tried to stop him but he had a gun." She motions toward her forehead, "That's how I got this."

His anger ignites even more when she reveals that whoever this guy is touched her.

"He knocked me out and I woke up about five minutes ago like this." She says, lifting her hands up to show him the shackles. "I was so worried about you when I saw you chained up."

"But Beckett, why would he... I-I mean we're not even-"

He's stopped by the sound of the metal door in the corner of the room opening. "Dearly Beloved!" The slender man shouts his presence to the two of them, grabbing both their attention.

But for Castle, his anger is ignited more than he ever remembers it being.

"We're gathered here today," the man says as he saunters through the darkness and toward the two partners in the center of the room, "to put these two lovers..."

The figure finally steps into the light, but Castle already knows his voice. "Vernon..."

"To the test!" The lawyer finishes with a flare of his hands.

Castle snaps at his shackles as he reaches for him. "You?" Beckett asks from opposite her partner, dumbfounded.

Craig Vernon smiles a Chesire smile down at Rick in a white dress shirt and tie with the sleeves rolled up, the skin around his nose red and darkened from where Castle's fist ran across it just a day before. "I warned you about looking like a fool, Rodgers."

Beckett looks at the lawyer, the lawyer that moved to try this case again in the first place, never even having put his name up on the murder board, her mind stunned. "You're the honeymoon killer?"

Castle and Vernon let her go unanswered as they stare each other down. Vernon takes another step toward Castle with the same grin and chuckles. "If only you could see your face now, Ricky."

* * *

 _A/N: How many guessed who the real killer was? :o_

 _Broke 500 reviews with my comeback chapter! More to come! Bored of everything else so I'm writting again. Be glad!  
_


	20. Chapter 20

Castle's teeth gnash and grind, his fingernails dig deeply into his palms, and if he thought he had enough physical strength, the chains keeping him in this chair would be torn off like tissue paper.

"How..." He hears Beckett wheeze opposite him, but his eyes are deadlocked with Craig's. "How can you be the honeymoon killer?"

"I always knew you were crazy, Craig." Castle begins as Vernon starts to saunter over to him. Castle's beginning quip makes Vernon's face twitch. "But I never pegged you for a psychotic serial killer."

Craig hisses through his teeth as he lifts a finger to Castle and wags it in his direction, wincing as he does. "See, Ricky, I _knew_ you would take it the wrong way."

"Wrong way? You kidnap and torture engaged couples, Vernon." Beckett finds her full voice as Vernon stops just a step away from her partner.

" _I..."_ Craig exclaims quickly, taking wide steps over to Beckett, lifting his finger to her this time, " _helped..._ those people." He says to her. Beckett eyes the killer confidently, never blinking and showing strength. As she always does, never wavering. Castle looks between them before focusing on her, both admiring her strength and courage and drawing from it.

"By killing them?" Beckett asks as Craig leans down toward her.

"Oh, please," Craig pshaws, waving his hand at her as he turns to head between them, over to the opposite side of the room. Craig stops in between the two pillars on Castle's left and turns on a television screen hidden in the darkness. "By the time I got those people to tell each other the truth, they were practically begging me to kill the other." He explains as he turns back to pace between them again with a small remote in his hand.

"What about the Bradley's, huh? Would you have killed them too?" Castle demands as Craig passes between them.

"Ah..." Vernon sighs loudly and stops, smiling at the ceiling. "Owen and Amy Bradley. You know," Vernon says with a quick spin around to face Castle, pointing at him with the small remote in his hand, "I was beginning to lose hope until I found them. They gave me hope... they knew the commitment and love it takes to be worthy of marriage."

"So, that's it?" Beckett chimes in, catching Vernon's attention quickly when he turns over his shoulder to look at her with a smile. "I put an innocent man in prison who's now _dead_ all because you want to kill people who shouldn't be married?"

Craig chuckles in his throat, making his slender shoulders jump as he shakes his head. "You still think that ignorant pig was innocent?"

Castle's brain halt while trying to come up with some sort of escape plan when Vernon chuckles out his response. "What are you talking about?"

Vernon keeps shaking his head as he spins around to face Beckett. "Right murderer, wrong victim, Detective."

Beckett's eyes go wide as she falls back into her chair a bit. "Who?" Is all she can manage.

"Good old Ned fessed up right as I met him to having his girlfriend's boy-toy killed. Ned got possessive when she met a new guy. She called the cops on him for violating a restraining order. He got picked up and while he was in holding... made a call to a number he got from an inmate."

"That's..." Beckett starts, "that's why the charges were dropped." She starts to piece together the side case her and Castle had been putting together just two nights ago.

From there, Castle takes off with her. "Ned threatens to kill Chelsea if she says anything to the police-"

"Chelsea goes into hiding until I arrest him-"

"And when Ned gets arrested as the honeymoon killer, she must have gone to visit him under a false identity-"

"Posing at Williams cousin to see if her life is in danger now that he's doing life." Beckett finishes right after him.

It's then that Vernon chimes in with another wag of the remote in his had. "Now _that..._ was entertaining. Please, tell me you two do that all the time."

That brings both Castle and Beckett's attention back to the here and now with Vernon, grinning at both of them and he looks between the two partners. Castle eyes Vernon with a cold hatred before he starts at him with clenched teeth. "Look, Craig... You've got it all wrong. We're not even a couple."

Beckett is quick to pick up after Castle, fast to try and convince their captor. "We're just partners, Vernon. All we do is work together."

"Tsk tsk tsk..." Vernon sucks at his teeth with a sad shake of his head toward her, "Bad idea to start lying to me right off the bat, Detective."

"She's _not_ lying, Craig. We're just partners!"

"You know," Vernon wags his remote at Castle again, "a few days ago, I might have believed you. But then..." he trails off, looking at the screen ahead of him and pointing the remote at it. He presses a button and the screen lights up. "I started watching."

Castle and Beckett turn to look at the screen as it lights up to show a picture that makes both of their hearts turn to stone and drop into their stomachs. Upon the screen is a picture of the two of them with her clung to his chest, her face buried in his blue dress shirt, with his arms around her and his hand petting her hair, his eyes closed. He'd recognize that moment anywhere. It's a picture of that earlier morning on the roof, the morning she got the news Williams had been killed in prison and she broke down in his arms.

"The brave, stoic police detective," Vernon starts as they both stare achingly at the picture on the screen, "gets the news that the innocent man she sent to prison, just as she had hopes of freeing him, has been killed in a prison riot." Vernon clicks the remote again and the picture changes, this time to a shot where her face is clearly visible and the tracks of her tears can clearly be seen from the building across the street where the shot was taken. Beckett's heart and body hurt, both aching for his arms to be around her like that again, and in a way, longing for the connection they had during those awful few minutes. "Her partner, always there for her, offers his shoulder and she goes to him, standing in his embrace in the cool breeze."

Vernon clicks the remote again and the picture changes to a shot of them on the same roof, this time, smiling at each other, their arms still around each other. She remembers this moment perfectly; the moment when he told her that quip about ambergris, just so she'd smile. She stares at the picture on the screen, forgetting the rest of the world and living in the picture for a moment, when it was just them, just her and him with his arms around her and nothing else, when she had nothing else and he offered that, he offered his arms to hold her and his chest to hide in.

"Look," Castle breaks the thickening silence in their dungeon and looks back over to Vernon. "Just because we hugged doesn't mean we're dating, okay?"

Beckett's heart squeezes at the seriousness and quickness of which he tells that to Vernon. Like looking at the picture made him sick.

"Ricky," Vernon draws out, "we're going to have a rough time here if you two keep lying to me."

With his tone, Beckett's hurt coalesces with her anger. "He's _not_ lying! We're not together, you psychopath!"

Vernon just keeps his smile on his face as he clicks the remote again. "Then do we remember this little incident?"

The screen changes and a video begins to play, the video showing someone holding a camera as they walk toward the bullpen of the precinct, where Castle and Beckett are standing in front of Gates, Esposito, and Ryan.

 _"How much do they want?"_ Castle says in the video.

" _Mr. Castle, it's not that simple."_ Gates responds.

Beckett's heart shivers in her chest and her blood grows cold.

" _However much they want, I'll pay it!"_ Castle watches the video, recalling the scene playing out; how he jumped to defend her so quickly, like he always does.

Beckett watches with a still aching heart as the video plays, obviously from Vernon wearing a hidden camera, and sees Castle's fist collide with Vernon's face, and the horror on her face, never having seen that side of him before, a totally different side of the man who just a few minutes before, was so gentle and caring as he pet her hair and rocked her from side to side to calm her down and let her know that he was there for her.

"So what?" Beckett asks as the video stops. "So Castle punched you for picking on him in high school. That doesn't mean we're a couple."

Vernon simply smiles at her and clicks the remote again. The next picture sends a riptide of goosebumps down her arms and her mouth to go dry.

But Castle goes numb.

On the screen, is a shot taken from across the street of the bar they were in last night, from where you can see them sitting in the back through the window of the bar. And out of all the moments they had last night, it's the one moment she was hoping that she wouldn't have to dig back up when she found out he didn't remember, the moment they kissed.

"W-what..." Castle tries, but is at a complete loss for words. He's still struggling with a headache, but as hard as he tries, the memories from the previous night are a complete fog. "W-what's that?" He asks, dumbfounded at the picture of their lips passionately locked and their hands entwined on the table.

Beckett's eyes flick between the screen and her partner, but his eyes never leave the screen. "Care to tell him, Detective?" Vernon asks, clasping his hands almost calmly in front of him.

"I-I..." She stutters as Castle looks over to her with a stern but arched brow. She looks up to Vernon who simply raises his brow in anticipation, then back to Castle, who's looking at her at a loss. Giving up, she throws herself back into her metal chair and hangs her head for a moment before deciding to tell him. "We were talking... about the night when we first kissed... that night in the alley. We were both pretty drunk, so we ended up kissing."

Hoping to end the story there, she knows Vernon isn't going to let her when he takes a step toward her. "Don't stop there, Detective Beckett. Care to tell him the circumstances under which the bar called you a car in the first place?"

"Wha..." Castle stutters again, looking between the two of them. He hates being out of the know. "What are you talking about? What is he talking about, Beckett?"

Tensing up, she deflates and rolls her head back against the back of her chair. "After we kissed, I took your hand and we... we went to the back into one of the bathrooms. I-I..." she struggles to tell him, feeling both ashamed and very small, and terrified to tell him just how much she wanted what they shared last night, "I just wanted to be with you and you... haven't exactly made it a very big secret how you felt on the matter, so... we-"

"Oh, Beckett..." Castle shakes his head in despair. "Please don't tell me we finally..." he struggles to voice it and simply crackles his voice before continuing, "a-and I was too drunk to remember it." He practically pleads.

"No," she shakes her head in reply, then looks down to her lap, unable to look him in the eye. "They caught us right as we rounded second base."

Castle shuts his eyes, breathes out a sigh of agony with a hint of relief that they didn't go all the way the one time he wouldn't be able to remember, and rocks his head back against his own metal chair.

"I'm sorry, Castle. I was weak and I just..." She forces out her honesty, wanting to be open with him even if it is in front of a serial killer. "I just wanted to kiss you again so badly."

"Hmm," Vernon chuckles as he looks between the two partners again, "I say we begin, shall we?" He says and turns around and strides into the darkness, coming back rolling two carts up beside each of their chairs. And they both recognize the machines as lie detectors. "I assume you know what these are." He says, setting down the remote and going to Beckett's chair first and pulling out a black, velcro strap from the cart on her side.

The instant Castle sees Vernon's hand reach for Beckett's arm laying on the armrest of the chair, Castle snaps at his chains. "Stay away from her, Vernon!" He hisses. As soon as Vernon's hand touches her arm to put the sensor on, Castle snaps at the shackles on his wrists again, hoping they'll miraculously break apart.

As soon as Beckett's sensor is on both her arm and her clip is put on her finger, with her remaining calm but flinching away from Vernon's touch, Vernon turns and pushes the other cart toward Castle's chair. Vernon is much more forceful with Castle than he was with Beckett. Castle snaps at his chains as soon as Vernon is within reach, trying to either hit him again or shake him off, but soon, a sensor is put on Castle's arm and one on his finger matching his partner's.

"Now," Vernon says and goes to stand between the two carts. "Let me explain how this works. As you can see, you are each hooked up to lie detectors. I will ask you each a question. If you lie," he looks at Castle then and pats the side of the cart on his side, "and I will know if you do, you get a strike." He says and points to the series of lights below the fuse boxes on the pillars beside each of them. "Three strikes... and you're out, Ricky. So," he finishes and clicks a series of switches on the cart on Castle's side, "let's start with you, Ricky."

Castle cracks his knuckles and stares Vernon in the eye as he straightens his back, shakes his shoulders out, and put his hand on the lever on the fuse box on his side. "Go ahead then."

"First question." Vernon says loudly. "Have you ever cheated on this women?"

Castle looks to Vernon, then to Beckett, then back to Vernon and clenches his jaw. "No."

The needle on his lie detector scratches against the roll of paper as Castle's heart stops. In a quick second, knowing what's to come for him, Castle snaps at his chains and tenses his muscles, readying his body for the pain. But as soon as Vernon slams down on the lever on his side, the chair opposite him sparks and cracks with the sound of the voltage going through it.

" _AHHHH!"_ She screams

" _NO!"_ He screams and jumps for her as Beckett's body twists and twitches, her legs kicking out in front of her and her head jolting and body jittering violently. Castle's iron belt is snapped taught as he jumps for her, held secured to his chair, helpless to help her as. " _Vernon_ _!"_ He shouts as Vernon shuts the lever off. As soon as the cracking and sparks stop, Beckett's slumps down in her chair, her legs shaking and her body limp, her hair fallen down in front of her face. "You _son of a bitch!_ _I_ was the one who lied! You hurt me!"

Vernon reaches up and grabs onto Castle's neck, forcing him back down and holding his neck to the back of his chair. " _Lies don't hurt you, Rodgers!"_ He shouts in his face. Vernon shoves his head back against the chair and Castle sees his partner struggle to push herself upright in her chair, groaning in pain. " _They hurt the people you love!"_ He shouts again, pointing at the woman across from him.

Vernon reaches over to the lights on Castle's side and clicks one on. Strike one.

"We're..." Beckett moans in a weak voice, "we're not together, Castle. How..."

"Tell her the truth this time, Ricky." Vernon warns him.

Castle slams his head into the back of his chair with a loud thud and gnashes his teeth. "It... it was just a kiss and I... all we did was go out to dinner and when I saw you coming out of her room I... I-I just panicked and I did the first thing that came to mind and I kissed her, but-"

"Are..." Beckett starts weakly as she pushes herself upright in her chair, "Are you talking about Serena Kaye?"

"She wasn't even that good of a kisser and her breath-"

"Castle..." She stops him, "I may have wanted to shoot that bimbo's lips off her face when I saw you two in that hallway... but I never held that against you."

"I know, but..." he grits his teeth again and Vernon steps away from him, "I told you I'd wait until you were ready and I just... I'm sorry." He says, hanging his head in shame.

"Good, good," Vernon says and steps up to Beckett's cart. "Now, we'll do you, Detective." He says and clicks on the second lie detector and looks directly down to Beckett with his hand on the switch of the fuse box on her side, with Beckett matching his deathly gaze with her own. "Have you ever cheated on this man?"

Never flinching, she looks him in the eye, and answers. "No."

Castle waits, looks at the needle on the other machine. After a long few seconds, the needle doesn't move and Vernon nods with a smile. "Good!" He exclaims and clicks her machine off. "I think we're off to a great start." Vernon says and clicks the remote and turns off the TV on the other side of the room. "But don't worry," He says as he opens the door to the concrete room, "we're just getting started."

The door closes, and Castle is left sitting in his chair, one light on on his side.

Beckett, muscles still aching from the shock, speaks up, seeing her partner still guilt-ridden from putting her through that. "Hey," she says. Castle looks over with a sad look in his baby blue eyes and she smiles, "one to zip."

* * *

 _A/N: Actually surprised at how many people didn't get who the killer was. Thought I made it kind of obvious. Anyway, anybody want to guess what episode of what show first inspired this story? :)_


	21. Chapter 21

Her muscles feel excruciating, her surgical scar is pulling at her like a wild animal on a fresh kill, and there's a tight knot in the center of her chest, deep in her heart, but that's not from the shock. None of the other couples Vernon tested could pass his test. Only one other couple could pass his test, and they were already together for so many years that they themselves said that getting married was just a formality for them.

The first question was easy for her, but if it had been Josh sitting on the other side, she wouldn't have passed.

Why Castle thought his kiss with Serena qualified as cheating on her, she can only guess. But as she silently watches him knock the shackles against the side of his chair, trying to break the bolts that hold them closed without success, getting angrier with each failed attempt, she admits to herself quickly. In his heart, he was already committed to her. That he had already given his heart to her, and the fact she tucked it in her back pocket for safekeeping was no excuse for the kiss.

The knot in her heart is getting more and more present the more these conflicting thoughts snake their way in.

These past few days with him, finding out just how deep his feelings for her were all this time, truly discovering just how much she had been lying to herself, trying her hardest to get him to see how much he means to her and how much she cares about him, sometimes it feels harder than recovering from getting shot. At least back then, she could feel that she was making progress. With him, it seems the deeper she digs and more progress she makes, the farther away the relationship she was waiting for gets.

The red light emanating from the pillar on Castle's side feels as if it's staring at her. They still have two more questions to go, and who knows what Vernon is going to ask them next. She still has more secrets and more truths she wants to reveal to him over time, but she wanted them to be together first before she spilled everything. She wanted to have the thing that he would be throwing away if it changed his mind, show it to him, and be able to say 'this is us'.

But as the thoughts meander her consciousness, one thought peaks through that makes her eyes burn.

 _We're going to die in here._

"Castle," she tries over a stuck throat, staring at the red light marking his first strike.

But Castle just knocks his shackle against the arm of his chair again. "Ragh! _Come_ on!"

"Castle, it's not-"

Suddenly, with a frightful force, Castle jumps from his seat and the room echos violently with the sound of the metal clanging. " _Ugh!"_ He grunts over the rattling of the chains. Beckett watches in painful horror as he falls back in his chair and tries again, jumping out of his chair with no preparation or hesitation. His chains and shackles hold tight again, even as Castle's face turns red and the muscles on his arm and chest flex and tighten from where she had torn the buttons from his shirt the night before.

" _Ugh!"_ He grunts again for the third try to as little avail as the first try had.

When Beckett sees the line of red going harshly across both his forearms, she lifts her hand from her armrest and gently speaks up to him. "Castle."

" _Argh!"_ He grunts.

"Castle!" She shouts over the rattling of the taught chains on his chair.

"I've got to get out of here!" He demands through a sweat-stained brow and a set of clenched teeth as he tries again to jump loose from his chair.

Beckett jumps, startled by the rocking force the last jump had before she shouts again to get his attention. "Castle, stop, please!" She pleads, her eyes still burning from the need to talk to him.

"I can't stay here." He hisses as he breathes for his next attempt.

"Rick, you're bleeding." She chokes and points at his arms. All he does is look at his bloodied forearm and shake his head in the other direction. The pain doesn't even penetrate his skin. "Please, all you're doing is hurting yourself. Now, can we-"

She jumps an inch out of her chair when he attempts again to break free of his chair, his face screwed together with pure rage.

"Castle! Why are you-"

"Because!" He shouts as he jumps again into one side, "my _daughter"_ he says and leans into the other side, "is graduating today, and I- _ugh-_ can't miss it!" He finishes angrily, this time just yanking on his left shackle.

She can feel her heart contract in on itself, folding inward from the purest form of guilt she's ever felt. Not only will they die in here, an eighteen-year-old girl will get the news her father's been murdered on her graduation day. That sends a train of hot tears rolling down her face. "Castle, I-I... I don't know what to say."

He shakes his head, angry with himself more than anyone, and feels his jaw click. "I swear, I've been to everything. I've been to every school play, every recital, every single soccer match, and softball game. I haven't missed a _single_ thing Alexis' life and now, I'm going to miss the most important day of her life." Both the sadness and the pain start to set in, a hot sting just below his ribcage and an even hotter sting across both his arms, but he'd take on the physical pain ten-fold in exchange for the guilt. "She's going to hate me for not being there."

Still crying silent tears, Beckett has to belt out a chuckle. "Castle... you're being held captive and tortured by a psychotic serial killer, I think Alexis will understand." She chuckles out with an honest smile that fades quickly as she looks down to her lap and shakes her head. A warmth starts to trickle into her chest, thinking of him as the doting father he is. It was the first thing she fell for, the thing that started the snowball.

"Do you think they know we're missing yet?" He asks.

She shrugs, hiding her tears under a veil made by her hair. "I was supposed to check in at the local police department in the morning. They should at least call the precinct when they don't hear from us. And I used my card to pay the bill at the bar, so they should be able to find out last known location."

"And where do you think that is?" He asks her as he looks around the darkness. "Looks like we're in a basement of some kind."

"We're in a fallout shelter." She answers quickly.

That catches his attention and draws his eyes back to her, noticing now that she has half her face hidden with her hair. It pains him to see her like this. He can tell she has tears in her eyes from here, and the dried blood still staining her cheek is only reminding him of the pain his lie caused her. "How do you know?"

She nods back to the wall behind him. "There's a radiation sickness poster on the wall behind you."

Shaking his head again, Castle looks around the darkness, seeing faint outlines of a sink and set of bunks lining the wall to the left of him. "Stuck in a bomb shelter on my daughter's graduation day all because of Sheena Kaplin."

"Sheena Kaplin? Who's that?"

Castle purses his lips and looks back at her. "She was Craig's girlfriend when we were at Edgewyck together. She was the headmaster's daughter, and Craig's favorite 'squeeze'." He air quotes. "I heard from the alumni newsletter that they had gotten married, but no one ever told Craig that Sheena was _everyone's_ favorite squeeze too." He emphasizes.

"You think he killed her too?"

"Well," Castle begins, looking at the door, "Damien was the one who told me she went missing on a hiking trip through the Italian countryside."

"Any idea why he stopped killing?"

"No." He shakes his head.

Beckett lets out a last sad chuckle and looks back down to her lap. "How many more do you think he'll kill after us?"

Castle stops, startled at her wordage. _She thinks we're going to die,_ he thinks to himself as he looks at her again. "We're going to make it out of here, Beckett." He tells her reassuringly.

"Castle," She shakes her head and looks up at the ceiling to let her hair fall out of her face before looking at him with reddened eyes, "none of the other couples made it through and we are nowhere near where the Bradley's were. The precinct has no clue where we are, and to top it all off, the killer happens to be your high school rival."

"We're going..." he says and looks at her seriously, "to make it. Okay? I've gotten us out of hairier situations than this before, don't worry."

She chuckles darkly again and rolls her eyes. "Like what?"

Castle smirks, "Travel back with me, Detective, to the time I got us out your cruiser that was sinking to the bottom of the Hudson. Or maybe the time I just so happen to defuse a gigantic radiation bomb at the last second, or perhaps the time I helped solve a murder while being held hostage by bank robbers? I got us out of those, I can get us out of this too."

The bank... he had to mention the bank.

If they are going to die in here, she has no other chance to tell him the things she was hoping to save for when their heads were on the same pillow of the same bed, but if they are going to have any shot at all of passing this nutjobs test, she needs to get him to see just how much he means to her. And as he is examining the chains on his wrists, she is thinking of those moments that she's always wanted to tell him about.

She speaks in a soft voice, as if she actually was lying next to him in bed where she wanted to share this, "You know," she begins, "when you were trapped in that bank... and I felt that bomb go off, I..." she trails off, feeling her eyes burn, "I stumbled out of the van and saw the dust cloud, I..." She bites down on her bottom lip and tries to wrangle herself in, "I thought that I'd lost you."

Her tone, it's a tone he's never heard before. The tone of bearing her soul, something she's never done. It makes all his worries of their situation fall away. She didn't say 'thought you were dead', or 'thought that you were gone'. She said that she thought she lost him. It sounded intimate.

"Just... for those few minutes before I saw you in the vault, I... I thought that I was never going to see you again." She tells him painfully, a tear sneaking out her right eye. She sniffles heavily before continuing in a clearer tone. "And when I saw that you were still alive, I was so happy to see you, but... it wasn't until my next therapy session that I realized that... I was faced with losing you and it was the worst, longest few minutes I've ever experienced. And I realized that that's what you went through when I got shot."

In an instant, with just a few words, his mood watersheds. "It's not the same thing, Beckett." He says quietly, dismissing her almost completely by looking the other direction.

"Castle," she breathes and lifts a hand, hoping he'll hear her out, "I'm just saying I felt what you went through and I-"

"You didn't feel what I did, Beckett." He warns her with an edge in his tone.

"I thought you were dead."

He finally breaks and can't contain the argument anymore. "And I had to feel you _die!"_ He shouts, leaning forward in his chair and looking directly at her, trying his hardest keep the words coming despite her tears. He shakes his head and looks away, sighing out a harsh sigh resembling a chuckle from his throat. "The fact that you think it's even remotely the same thing is beyond me, Beckett." He tells her sternly as he looks back over to her. "I don't think you seem to get the fact that you _died_ in my arms." He's trying his best to contain the shake in his voice, but it's not working.

And it's breaking her heart.

"I had to _watch..._ as the life left you. I had to feel your body tremble in my hands. There I was, holding you in my arms and pleading with you not to leave me like some... helpless child, telling you how I felt when I knew for a fact you didn't look at me that way, I was just some... hopeless fool, pouring his heart out to a woman who had just been shot, so..." he pauses, shaking his head and sinking back down into his chair, "don't pretend you know what I felt like."

She knew from the beginning of this case that she had broken his heart by letting him find out about her lie. But finding out just how much heartbreak he'd been harboring because of her...

"You know," she begins after a pause, "maybe you're right and I don't know exactly what you went through when I got shot, Castle." She says with an undertone of anger. "But if you're trying to say that thinking you might have been nothing more than a splatter on the side of a safe deposit box wasn't the worst things I've ever had to face, you're _dead_ wrong."

All he can do is let out a small sigh.

But Beckett rolls her eyes and looks at the ceiling again. "What is it going to take to convince you that you actually mean something to me, Castle?"

"I-"

He's interrupted by the sound of the door on the corner of the room flinging open and the hinges creaking loudly. "Shall we continue?" Vernon announces as he strides through the doorway. "We made some great progress last time. One strike for you, Ricky. Off to a bad start. Detective... you're doing well so far." He says and comes to stand next to her first. "Why don't we start with you this time then?"

Beckett's blood grows cold the instant he steps up to her. This is all his fault. Not Castle's, not her's. His and his alone. "Go ahead."

"All right," Vernon says and clicks on the lie detector still sitting next to her. "Detective Beckett," he starts and looks down to her, putting his hand on the flip switch on the column next to her, "have you ever kept any secrets from this man?"

Beckett swallows and looks over to Castle, not hesitating in telling him the truth. "Yes."

Castle's demeanor grows as cold as her blood as his eyes go over to Vernon.

Vernon's hand remains on the switch. "And what did you keep from him, Detective?"

She draws in a long breath before answering. "That I heard him tell me that he loved me... the day I was shot." She admits with a shake in her voice. "I told him I-"

"Ah ah ah," Vernon warns her, "don't tell me, Detective." He says and points over to Castle.

She empties her lungs and looks over to Castle. "I told you I didn't remember anything when I woke up... and I'm sorry I let you find out the way you did."

"And why did you keep this from him?" Vernon asks her, a much lower, darker tone, revealing the killer inside of him through his voice.

She looks up to him, her skin flushing with a cold sweat before looking back at her partner. "Because I wasn't ready to handle hearing how he felt."

A second later, the needle scratches across the roll of paper and her lungs fill back up with air as her heart stops. "No, _wait!"_

It's too late just as Vernon slams down on the panel, throwing the switch.

Castle's chair sparks and cracks with violent electricity. His body quakes and convulses from side to side, his arms and legs twitching chaotically and Beckett is out of her chair, pulling as hard as she can at her chains as she lunges for him. " _Vernon, stop!"_

But Vernon keeps the switch flipped, longer than he had against her.

As the electricity flows throw Castle's body, for a solid seven seconds, his voice straining from holding back a scream, Beckett snaps at her shackles with tears jumping from her lashes. " _Damn it,_ Vernon! You're killing him! Stop it!"

Vernon finally flips the switch and her partner's chair stops crackling. His body slumps down in his chair, weak and limp as his face contorts in agony, arching his back off against the back of his chair.

"Now, _tell him the truth!"_ Vernon shouts at her, leaning down. "Why did you lie to him!?"

" _Because I wanted him out of my life!"_ The truth rips out from the pits of her soul, screaming it into her captors face.

"Don't tell me!" He shouts back.

Beckett looks back at Castle, who's panting in his chair. His eyes are locked with hers, wide, vulnerable, shining with emotion and disbelief. Letting a breath shake out of her throat, she starts. "That night at my apartment... you said things to me that _no one_ had ever said to me before." She begins, her voice edging as she thinks about their fight, how angry with him she was. "And I meant it when I said that we were over, Castle. But then... Montgomery dies and... when I woke up and remembered getting shot, I just... I just wanted my life to go _back..._ back to the way it was before."

"Before me." He finishes.

Beckett's eyes close as tears keep leaking out. "Yes." She looks back at him. "And I planned on doing just that. I was fully committed to never seeing you again after that day at the hospital."

"Then why did you come back at all, Beckett?" He asks her in a dark, angry voice.

She raises her head, taking in a struggling breath before answering. "When I went back to the precinct, I just wanted to get back to the case. That was the only thing on my mind. But when Ryan and Esposito told me that they left the file with you for safekeeping, I... I tried calling you but your phone was turned off, so... I knew I had to go see you in person."

"So the only reason..." He begins, his heart turning to stone inside of his aching chest, "I ever saw you again... was because I had that file?"

But Beckett's heart is already broken. She never thought she would have to deal with this with him. She never thought she would have to tell him about these feelings, about the hell that was her recovery. "Yes."

A part of her wants Vernon to end her life now, because she can see his eyes redden with tears.

"But Rick, that's _not_ why I stayed." She begs. "I stood in that line at your book signing and heard everyone talking about you, and the _instant_ I saw you again, I knew I was fooling myself. Seeing you again brought back everything I had spent the last three months pushing away.

"That's why you didn't call..." he says with stinging eyes, "for three months, you didn't call... not because you just needed time... but because you just couldn't stand having me in your life at all?"

"Rick, I was _wrong!"_ She pleads. "I wanted you out of my life because _everything_ you said to me that night was true, okay? But I was wrong!"

Through blurry vision, Castle sees Vernon step up to him, his hands clasped in front of him, looking down at him with a grin. "You know what you're feeling right now, Ricky?" Vernon asks him as he kneels down to Castle's eye level.

He grits his teeth as he looks away from her and over to Vernon.

"That's why everyone else is dead."

* * *

 _A/N: Bit of an emotional ride, huh? What'd ya think? Did you survive?_


	22. Chapter 22

_A/N: Have to draw the old maid in the deck of cards fanfiction writer's are dealt here. Sorry. =/_

* * *

"Castle?"

He can't look at her. As much energy as he can muster from his agonizing muscles are focused on swallowing every ounce of emotion, or at least divert it somewhere other than his eyes. He feels pathetic. Weak. Small. He thought for the longest time, convinced himself that she was the one. She may not believe in fate, but he liked to think that they could weather the tests fate put them through because they were just meant to be together.

He can see now that it was as fiction as Nikki Heat was. It's what he's best at, creating fiction.

"Rick, I'm _sorry."_ She pleads with him again, hating nothing but herself for ever feeling that way, being that adamant about lying to herself to keep things the way they were, when the only thing that she would die from losing was her own life, not anyone else's. But he can't even stand to look at her anymore as he grits his teeth and narrows his eyes to try and force back the emotion shimmering in them.

"Why don't..." Vernon makes his presence known again as he stands back up from kneeling next to Castle, "we continue?" He asks and clicks Castle's lie detector on. "Now," he begins and puts his hand on the switch, looking menacingly down to Castle. Her partner, his face now set in a cold stoicism as he looks down to the floor, cements his shoulders as he leans back in his chair. "Have you ever kept any secrets from this woman?"

He knew he'd have to face this down. And now... there's no use worrying if she hates him or not. At least now, the only fact he can see on her is that she wanted him out, and cut him out without even telling him. She even said that she would call him when she was ready. And it's clear now that he would have died waiting for that call to come, and that was her intention. Maybe to have him waiting by the phone or maybe to just have him give up after a few days and go and live his life without her. Either way, his emotions and how he felt were never once taken into thought, and if they were, it didn't matter.

But for Beckett, the question seems an easy one. He's always been open about his life. He may play his emotions a little close to his vest at times, try to throw things off with a quip and a smirk, but he's never been one to harbor secrets like her's. Maybe they will make it out of this if Vernon takes his simple answer as a truthful no.

"Yes." Castle answers sternly, looking up at Vernon.

Beckett's heart shoots up into her throat like a rocket, but it holds there, not ready to drop just yet. It could be anything.

"What secrets have you kept from her this woman?" Vernon asks with a set of burning eyes into her partner.

Castle snorts a small huff and shakes his head before looking back over to her. "After you came back, I got a call."

"She knows the second he mentions her that it's not something small.

"He said he was a friend of Montgomery's." He continues and looks back down to his lap. And it feels as if with each seriously toned word out of his mouth, her guilt and heartbreak seep out of her body. "Montgomery had sent him a package. It had... files and information that could hurt the person behind everything. He said that he... struck a deal with them."

"What deal?" She pushes him in a hushes, all too anxious voice.

He takes in another hard breath and continues at its release. "The deal was... that if they agreed to leave you alone, that file would stay buried. But they had one condition."

"What?" She pushes him again, putting more force behind her tone.

He finally looks back up at her, looking her in the eye with a coldly determined gilt. "You had to stop. You had to stop investigating and they would leave you alone. Montgomery had the same deal with them and that's why they killed him, and once he was dead, they came after you, but the file hadn't arrived until after they shot you." he explains, slowly turning Beckett's heart to stone in her chest, aching with betrayal. "That's the reason you're still alive... because you stopped."

"How..." She trails off, weak-willed to find out more of the man she's slowly beginning to not recognize. "How do you know all this?"

Castle closes his eyes and takes another breath despite his painful lungs. "Before Montgomery was killed, he could stop you from investigating them as much as he could as your Captain. But... with him gone... someone had to be around to make sure that you weren't looking for them. The man who has the file, he... he put that responsibility on me. Montgomery told him that he could trust me." He finishes and looks away.

He was supposed to know her, know her better than anyone in the world. He knows how much that case means to her. The only reason she stopped was because there wasn't anywhere to go, and he promised... _he promised..._ that they'd close it once they had a lead. And he sat on it. Her heart clenches against her aching lungs wanting to scream. He was supposed to love her, but he kept something this important from her, treated her like a child.

"Why did you keep this from her?" Vernon asks.

Beckett stares at him with a piercing gaze, wanting to know how the man calling himself her partner could keep all this from her.

"I..." he hesitates, not wanting to give voice to the only answer that could ever be truthful enough.

"Why did you keep this from her, Rodgers?" Vernon asks in a quicker voice.

Castle tries again but just can't say it. He's too weak, he doesn't have the strength to admit it. And if he ever did, he'd want Vernon to pull that trigger on him now to get it over with. "I..."

But Vernon sits through his silence for only a moment before throwing the switch on him, sending shakes of violent pain into Beckett's body. She erupts again in extreme pain and convulses out of her chair, her body jumping back and forth while Castle can only snap at his chains and squeeze his eyes shut.

Her scream of pain is clenched in her throat but breaks out after the second convulsion. " _Ahhh!"_

 _"_ _Damn_ it, Vernon! I'm gonna kill you!" Castle warns.

After the long seconds are over and Vernon kills the switch, Beckett slumps down in her chair, her body weak, her scars pulling, and her heart in pieces. "Now _answer! Why did you keep this from her?!"  
_

 _"Because I'll never be more important to her otherwise!"_ He shouts at full volume, straining his voice at the force.

But even over the screaming pain and ringing ears, she hears him as she struggles to push herself upright.

" _Don't,"_ Vernon says and grabs Castle's face, "tell," he twists his face to look at her, "me!" He demands and releases him.

Beckett forces her eyes to stay open over the pain in her excruciating muscles. But something in her heart, something deep, is getting her prepared to renege on every excuse she just gave herself for her anger. She's known about this feeling for a long time. It's always the precursor to what eventually turns out to be the truth, and it always comes in the form of him.

Castle's heart feels weak and tested enough. He told himself from the beginning of this trek that he would have to be prepared to give this woman up sooner rather than later. He was just hoping to do it with some semblance of dignity left. He just winces at his own emotions and shakes his head. And as much as he hates every single fiber of his body for letting him, he can feel his eyes burn. "Never once... have you ever chosen me, Kate."

SHe knew this was it. That feeling in the pit of her heart has taken over... and she knows that this is going to be a moment she'll remember for the rest of her life... however short that is.

"If a choice comes along, and you have to choose between your case and your own personal happiness, you've chosen wrong every... _single..._ time. And maybe guys like Josh are willing to be put through that while he's off saving the other half of the world, but I can't be put through that. And when the opportunity presented itself where I could not only keep you safe, but finally get the chance to prove to you that I could be the right guy for you and that we could have something meaningful to both of us, yes, I jumped at it. I was hoping to give you something that you wouldn't trade for anything so your case wouldn't matter anymore and the choice would have been the easiest you've ever made."

A stone sits inside of her chest now, a thousand voices swirling in her head, all mumbling his words back at her. Trying to prove himself, never choosing him, or never would, not having the faith that she'd ever be with him as long as that case is still going on. Telling herself to move on was easy when there wasn't a lead this big, it was easy when all she had to go on were dead ends.

Because she wants to push him for more answers, demand explanations, to find this person claiming to be 'a friend'. But what does she want more?

"I wanted to keep you safe, and if I thought you wouldn't run headfirst into them just like they wanted you to, I would have told you about it, but you have _never_ chosen your own personal happiness over that case... so I had to lie to you."

She's down to two feelings at this point, the war going on inside of her whittling down to two sides. Love and betrayal.

Vernon eyes Castle again before taking his hand off the switch hooked to Beckett's chair. "Why don't you say you're sorry, Rodgers?"

"Because I don't want to set the lie detector off again." He answers quickly, sending Vernon a cold stare.

Vernon leans down into Castle's face. "You're not sorry for lying and keeping secrets from her?" He asks in a hushed, angry tone.

"I'm not going to be sorry for keeping her safe, Vernon. At the end of the day, I don't care if she hates me for it as long as she's _alive_ to do it. That's what a man does, Craig. We're not all as spiteful as you are, or did your father never teach you about strength as you were killing everyone's favorite plaything, Sheena Kaplin?"

She can see Vernon's inner rage spark in his eyes as he reaches behind his back with his face twisted in hatred as Rick remains stoic. Vernon pulls out a gun and puts the barrel at Castle's neck. Her breath is caught in her throat and won't let go, her heart palpitating in her chest as her partner's life hangs by just one pull of the trigger. And even after all this time, she can still feel her eyes push out tears at the thought of a future without him, staring her in the face as Vernon holds a gun to him.

"We still have one more question to go, Ricky." Vernon says and angrily shoves the gun away.

"Can't wait." He retorts as Vernon spins around and shoves the gun back into his waistband.

Once the door in the corner slams shut, her breath can finally let out and she sighs deeply in relief. "Oh, Castle, I thought he was going to kill you."

He nods in a small motion and tears his eyes away from the door, but instead looks down to his lap. "Yeah," is all he can manage.

And now, they're alone and her heart, for once, is winning over her brain that just wants to bury everything else to stay focused on the case. Her heart always puts up a much stronger fight whenever he's around. "Castle."

"What..." He mutters across to her as looks at his still fresh wounds from pulling on his chains.

She takes a pause and looks at him, takes him in. His chest is starting to bruise just above where the belt is, his chest is starting to stain with sweat, his arms are bloodied and raw, his hair is disheveled and ungroomed, but even in his state of torturous disarray, if not for this chair, she'd be going to him and kissing him. "What do I have to do to convince you once and for all how much you mean to me?" She finally asks.

"I never said that I thought I meant nothing, just... not enough."

"And how do you know that?" She fires back calmly.

He eyes her while looking down at his forearm. "Because of how much I know you want to ask me what I know about the case."

She slams her head back against her chair and shakes her head. "You couldn't just come to me, Castle?"

"And what would you have done, Kate?"

"I would have done what I had to."

Castle's voice finally raises to full volume over her, "And that's _exactly_ what they want you to do, Kate!" He practically shouts. "They _want_ you investigating because as long as you are, the deal is broken and they can finally get rid of you, and I can only jump in front of a bullet for you so many times before one actually manages to get through. Because they want me gone just as much as they do you."

"What the hell are you talking about, Castle? I was the one they shot."

Castle just shakes his head, "Who do you think tried to frame the mayor for murder, Kate?"

"The mayor, what does he have to do with any of this?" She shrugs.

"Kate, think about it, the _only_ thing keeping at that precinct as your partner at all is my relationship with the mayor. They wanted him gone because they know that if I'm gone, I won't be able to either stop you from investigating or be there to jump in front of whatever they throw at you. Lying to you was the only way I could keep you safe. And yes, I did it because I saw it as a chance to finally get to prove to you that I could be the right guy for you, but that doesn't mean I'm willing to have you _die_ in my arms again just because you realized I couldn't be."

" _Castle,"_ she stops him angrily, "what the _hell_ do I have to do to get it through your _thick_ skull," she says and slams her shackle against the arm of her chair, "that I actually care about you?!"

He lets out a small chuckle that even sounds as if he finds what she said funny. "Coming from the woman who just said she wanted me out of her life, I'd say you'd have to do a lot."

"Were you even listening to me?" She demands.

"Of course I was listening to you, how could I miss that? You just said that you wanted me out of your life, Kate."

"Castle, I wanted you out of my life because with you around, I can't _lie_ to myself!"

That vanishes every clever retort and quip his whit at formed for him for this argument. Her firey anger he doesn't like seeing sited on him, but coupled with those hazel eyes shining with tears sneaks passed his defenses like a trojan horse. And he falls silent, his heart forcing itself open to hear her.

"Did you even hear me, Castle? Why the hell do you think what you said to me that night in my apartment upset me so much?"

"I-I don't know." He honestly answers. He thought he knew. "Because you thought I was wrong."

But her emotional anger doesn't dissipate into pleading. For five days she's been banging her head against the wall with him, and maybe if she'd been more forceful with him, it would be different. But she's angry now. All this time, and he decides now, just as they're about to lose their lives, that he thinks she doesn't care about him.

"No, it wasn't because I thought you were wrong. It's because I knew you were right." She says, putting force behind her voice as she leans forward toward him. "Not only were you the one person who had the guts to be honest with me, you were _completely_ right... about everything you said, and I knew it. But as long as you were around, I wasn't able to push it all away like I'm able to when you're not around. And _that's_ what you are to me, Castle."

His defenses are down, as fortified as they were, they are down now and he's hearing her. Just as he was that day on the swings, when she got passed his defenses by telling him that she had broken up with Josh and how her availability sent him trailing right behind her. "What do you mean?" He asks just above a whisper.

She lets out a huff and looks away for a moment. "Rick, do you remember the night we took down Lockwood?"

"Yeah, the night we kissed, but-"

"I'm not _talking"_ she stops him, "about the kiss, Castle. I'm talking about the ambulance!"

His brow creases as his brain, wrapped up in getting his body to remember the kiss they shared, struggles to recall everything. "The ambulance?"

"After we saved the boys and took down Lockwood, you were sitting in the back of the ambulance bandaging your hand." She lets out a breath as a thought that's been sitting in her heart flows out of her mouth. "Because you had just taken down a professionally trained assassin with nothing but your bare hands and the coat on your back for me..." She trails off, her eyes burning, "I took the bandages from you to help and I thanked you." She looks him in the eye, just as she couldn't the night she's telling him about. "I thanked you for having my back and you said something to me. What was it?"

"I-I..." he struggles, broadsided by her openness and her honesty. "I don't remem-"

She stops him by slamming her arm out and yanking on her shackles in rage. " _Damn_ it, Castle! I know you remember. What did you s-"

"Always!" He shouts over her. He empties his breath with a sigh and sits back in his chair and looks away from her. "Always... I said always."

She nods as her heart filters his words now with the tender tone he used then. "You said that, and I remember _vividly..._ that I could _not_ look you in the eye. After everything my job has put us through and all the danger that I've gotten you into and with every impossible thing that was coming from my mother's murder, you told me in that ambulance that you'd _always_ be there. And I couldn't look you in the eye... because I knew without a doubt that if I did, I would have reached over, I would have grabbed you and would have had a very hard time letting go."

"Then why didn't you?" He asks her, a semblance of resistance coming to him by thinking at just how much hell he's put himself through because he thought he wasn't enough for her.

Kate rolls her eyes back and leans her head back against her chair. "Because my heart told me that my feelings for you went _a lot_ deeper than I anticipated, but I lied to myself and said that they weren't real. _That's_ why I tried to cut you out of my life, Castle. That's what you are in my life. You're what forces me to listen to my heart, and I was so determined to lie to myself and say that what you said about my mother's murder and my feelings for you weren't real that I was willing to cut you out completely if it meant stopping that voice in my heart telling me that you were right."

"So..." he hesitates, not wanting to sound that vulnerable, but the shimmer, almost happy shimmer as she looks over at him with a smile starting to edge at the corners of her lips, breaks him. "It was never about me. I never had to... prove myself or... show you that I could have been the right guy for you."

"Rick..." She sighs emotionally again, wanting him desperately to understand fully before it all ends, "if I didn't already know you were the right guy, I wouldn't have been trying like hell to push you away."

* * *

"Yo!"

"Yeah," Ryan says over a full mouth as he grabs his coffee cup from his desk.

His partner comes up next to his desk with a file in his hand. "You hear from Castle or Beckett this morning?" He shrugs.

"Nah," he answers, flips a paper over, and drinks from his mug, "they're probably still upstate." He says and goes back to his work. "For as long as they can stand each other before there's another murder to solve." Ryan mumbles.

"I know, right?" Esposito agrees as he sits next to Ryan's desk. "What do you think's with them?"

"I don't know, but I wish someone would just lock them in a room somewhere and not let them out until they've made up."

"Detectives!" Gates orders for them as their captain strides of out of her office.

Both of them turn their attention to their boss. "Sir?" Esposito asks.

"Have either of you heard from Detective Beckett?" She asks them with a quick edge in her voice.

"No." He answers back.

"Well, what about Castle?"

"No, they're both still upstate coordinating with local police, Captian." Ryan says. "Why?"

Gates sighs and plants a hand on her hip. "I just got off the phone with the police department upstate. Detective Beckett and Mr. Castle were supposed to be there by eight o'clock but they never showed up. The secretary told me that they had left shortly after speaking with the survivor of the killer's last kidnapping, heading toward the town center, and Beckett charged the NYPD for a twenty-two dollar bar tab at a local bar."

"Oh," Espo smiles, "big trouble."

"Local police talked to the bartender on staff last night, who gave them a description of Castle and Beckett, and said they were claiming to be a newly engaged couple..." It's then that Espo's and Ryan's eyes get wide and they are both leaning up out of their chairs, "and were out to celebrate their engagement. It seems they were caught being intimate in one of their bathrooms, were asked to leave, and left in a cab."

Espo looks widely over to Ryan, who's agape. "I swear, I was only kidding."

* * *

 _A/N: I know Castle's secret is a bit of a hot button issue in the fandom and that most people would rather not mention it. But this is the deck I was dealt, these are the cards I have to play with, and when you're dealt the old maid, you can't just pretend you're not holding it. That's kinda cheating._

 _Anyway, hope you enjoyed! Bit of a dialogue heavy chapter. Next chapter is going to be a biggy._


	23. Chapter 23

"Where's my dad?!" A desperate voice cries from the elevator.

Both Ryan and Esposito spin around from the murder board to see Castle's daughter practically gallop into the bullpen with her eyes red and her grandmother as close behind her as she can manage keeping up with her. Martha looks just as panicked as her granddaughter as she rounds the barrier into the bullpen while Alexis is already speeding up to the detectives.

The pillar of their family is gone, and both the detectives can see they're starting to collapse.

"Now, Alexis," Ryan tries to calm Castle's daughter down by putting his hand out to her.

"Where is he!" She cries and lunges for him.

But Espo is quick to put himself between his partner and the emotional teen, barricading her from Ryan until Martha comes up behind her and gently grabs the girls shoulders and pulls her back. "Where's Richard? Have you had any ransom demands or phone calls?"

"Ms. Rodgers," Ryan starts, trying his best to console them while telling them the hard truth at the same time, "whoever took Castle and Beckett isn't after money. He isn't after fame or looking to taunt the police."

"Then what does he want?" Alexis demands.

"Well," Esposito starts and motions toward the murder board behind him, "your dad came up with the idea that he's after the perfect couple. His insight led us to the Bradley's." Esposito points over his shoulder to the conference room, where a female uniformed officer is sitting down with the only surviving couple, who is giving their statement on anything else they can remember. "The killer took them from a bar during the original kidnappings, but he let them go. Thanks to your dad, we found out that the killer is testing the couples he takes."

"Oh, that's preposterous." Martha speaks up while still grasping her grand daughter's shoulders, "Katherine and Richard aren't engaged." She practically chuckles and waves off the murder board.

"They aren't even together." Alexis shrugs and shakes her head.

But all Ryan and Esposito can answer with is a knowing look between them that doesn't know how to tell them the news. "It seems..." Ryan hesitates, "that Castle and Beckett went undercover pretending to be engaged at a local bar where the last kidnapping took place, and were u-uhm... caught... being intimate in the handicapped bathroom."

Both redheads just gape at them, disbelief paling both their features. "Excuse me?" Martha asks. A part of the elderly woman wants to be very happy for her son finally winning Kathrine over. She's watched her son go through falling for and over women his whole life, but Katherine was different for him. Something about her made him not want to give up on her or himself. But he's missing and her heart won't let her be happy right now.

Suddenly, Alexis jerks herself out of her grandmother's grasp and pushes herself between the two detectives and strides over to the murder board and jabs her finger at the name 'Reginald Robinson Lee'. "Who's this?"

"Another one of your dad's leads." Ryan explains. "It's the name that the killer used to write the engagement announcement for the newspaper."

Alexis, her eyes still red and her brow straight with emotional focus, turns back around and grabs the marker, quickly scrawling out another name.

"Alexis, dear, don't-" Martha tries.

But Esposito stops her with a raised hand. "No, it's alright."

A few seconds later, Alexis throws the marker back down without recapping it and points at it. "Search that name."

The name _Frederick Fleet_ written out just below the name Castle wrote up there days ago in similar handwriting, is spelled out and underlined. "Why that name?" Ryan asks.

"The lookouts on the Titanic the night they struck the iceberg, Reginald Lee and Frederick Fleet. Frederick Fleet was the one who rang the bell just before they struck the iceberg. If the killer went underground, he probably changed his name."

"Yeah... yeah, okay," Esposito says seriously and falls down into his chair, rolls it over to his desk and starts typing as the door to the conference room opens.

"We haven't had a real lead all day. Hopefully, Castle's gene's didn't skip a generation, huh?" Ryan tries with a smile beamed at Alexis. But it falls flat when the girl tucks her hands under her arms when she crosses them tightly over her chest.

"Here we go, we got phone records." Esposito says.

"I'm telling you, baby, I can't describe _exactly_ how someone looks." An annoyed female voice says.

"They always make it look so much easier on TV." A much taller man says as he puts his arm around the woman's shoulder. The couple comes to a stop at the four, the woman shaking her head.

"I'm sorry, Detectives. It was just so long ago."

"You're going to have to give us some slack. We were still a bit hung over." Owen Bradley says with a smile.

"If I could..." Amy Bradley stops, her eyes grow wide as she turns and latches onto her husband's sweater and pulls to herself, clinging to his side as her eyes go past them and into the television set hanging in the corner.

"Amy?" The husband asks. "Sweetie, what is it?"

Amy's arm jets out as she points to the TV, where all eyes go. It's a news report, the picture of a familiar looking face being interviewed by reporters outside of the courthouse. "It's him!"

Owen looks up and his jaw goes slack. "Holy crap, it is him. That's-" he points to the TV, "that's him!"

"That's who?" Alexis asks the two as she turns to them.

"That's the guy who took us! I'm sure of it!" Amy shouts.

Ryan and Esposito look at each other knowingly for a split second before Ryan is taking off into his Captain's office while Espo focuses back on his computer. "Phone records and financials for the name you gave us, Alexis, show Freddie Fleet only does one thing with his life... drive Uber. But according to his financials, he's never made a pickup."

"They pay when the ride is over," Alexis thinks out loud, "so he never collects a fee because he kills them."

"Now... for our lawyer boy that your dad laid out the other day," Esposito says with a grin as he types, "records coming up clean as far as I can tell. It's going to take time to sort through everything, find out where he's holding Castle and Beckett."

It's then that Ryan comes running out of Gates' office with a sheet of paper in his hand. "SWAT's notified and on stand by, Gates' is on the phone with the judge, and the local PD upstate got something from the survivor."

Esposito stops and swivels away from his computer.

"What can I do to help?" Alexis makes her presence known again.

"No, Alexis, just stay focused on your dad, alright?" Esposito waves her off as he goes back to the report, and it's enough to send Alexis over the edge. "They found traces of lead in the victim's shoes?"

"Yeah, local police don't know where it could have come from. There aren't any facilities that produce _or_ use lead in the area."

"What about basements?" Alexis asks, catching the attention of the two professionally trained detectives.

"Basements?" Ryan asks.

"During the cold war, some factories built basements using concrete mixed with lead to act as fallout rooms in case a bomb ever hit."

"Alexis, that doesn't exactly help us narrow down-"

"Uh..." Esposito interrupts him as he points to his screen. "Looks like Vernon owns a few industrial properties. According to this, they were originally his dad's, who made a fortune buying up the old coal plants that shut down when New York started to go nuclear, but lost everything when he sunk his fortune into the real estate market during the last bubble. Dad died a few months ago and left Vernon with the debt."

"Any properties near where the survivor from the last kidnapping was found?" Ryan asks.

"Just one..." Esposito says and gets up out of his chair, grabbing his jacket off the back as he makes one last click of his mouse, "an abandon coal plant built in the sixties, twenty-five miles outside of the town limits."

* * *

"What time is it?" Beckett asks, having drained herself of emotion over the past hour.

Castle opens his eyes and looks down at his wrist. "Ten minutes past six." He says painfully and leans his head back against his chair and closes his eyes, his heart quivering in his throat as he goes back to his mental image. "Alexis is supposed to be on stage giving her valedictorian speech right now."

"I'm so sorry you couldn't make it to see her graduate, Castle." She says honestly.

"The thing I've always tried to instill in Alexis is the thing that my mother never gave me, and that's that family always comes first. When she finds out I missed the most important day of her life because of this, she'll hate me."

Beckett chuckles at his lack of forethought. "Castle, if you taught her that, her valedictorian speech is the last thing on her mind right now. And you're a great father, Castle, you know that. It was the first thing I fell for about you." She says with a smirk. "I always loved it when Alexis would come around the precinct. She brought out this other side to you that wasn't that... egotistical child you always pretended to be."

"Nothing like a little flattery to lift your spirits." He sarcastically retorts with his head still leaned back.

She shakes her head, a part of her wanted to give up on trying to win him over. But she feels that he at least knows now that it was never about him having to prove himself. "Why do you think he keeps leaving?" She asks him.

"It's the lie detectors, you can only maintain accuracy if you ask two to three questions at a time." Castle motions over to the carts they're still attached to.

"Since when do you know about lie detectors?"

Castle chuckles and lifts his head off the back of his chair and looks over to her. "I thought you said you read everything I've ever written."

"I _have read_ everything you've ever written, Rick. What do you think got me through my mother's murder?"

A part of him doesn't hear her as he's continuing. "Then you'll remember chapter nineteen of Storm Season."

"Derrick Storm hooked to a lie detector wired to a bomb. I remember, I had a signed copy, for god's sake." She sighs in her usual impatient tone.

But that catches his attention to where he has to ask. "Y-you... you did?"

And Beckett, not in the mood to put up the effort to hide anything, smiles despite herself and shakes her head. "It was back before we met when I just got my uniform. I finished my beat early just to stand in line. And after hours I finally got to my turn and I was so nervous I didn't even say anything to you except stammer out my name."

"How come you never told me this? I don't remember that?"

"I never told you because the last thing I needed you to know back then was that your books were the only thing that got me through the worst time of my life and that I was so nervous to meet you the first time that I couldn't even speak to you. Your ego was big enough for me to deal with back then." She says with an eye roll and leans her head back against her chair and stares at the ceiling. "I don't even have the book anymore, I lost it when my apartment blew up."

To the both of them, it feels hopeless. These shackles feel even tighter than they were before. Vernon wasn't even on the radar as a suspect. They have no clue if the precinct has any leads at all. And there are two lights glowing on Castle's side, with only one on her's. He doesn't know what the next question is going to be... and he doesn't know how to feel about her.

"Kate..." he calls for her, his heart aching for some semblance of the companionship they had once shared.

She cranes her neck and looks over to him with a softness. She doesn't want them to fight anymore. She's emotionally drained and tired. They've been through so much that right now, she just wants to know what it's like to crawl into bed with him for the night and fall asleep on his chest with his arms draped over her.

"Do you ever think we're just not meant to be together?"

"No," Her answer comes in an instant.

There's a heaviness in Rick's features. A hopelessness she hates seeing. "Why?"

"Rick, if I thought we were fated to be together, why the hell would I work this hard?"

"Kate..." He hangs his head down, "if I never had to prove anything all this time, why did you still keep me waiting?" He asks, but doesn't let her answer as he keeps talking. Something inside of him is sparked and is quickly igniting. "You've known all this time how I felt about you and you've said that you knew I was right for you and that you've wanted us to be together just as much as I have, but you kept shutting me out. So, it sounds like the only thing you've worked at is keeping me away."

"Castle!" She cries again, her emotional reserves finding an endless supply to go off of as she shakes her head against the back of her chair. "You have no idea what I was waiting for, do you?" She asks desperately, looking back over to him.

"I know what I was waiting for, Kate, but-"

"Rick, think about it!" She stops him, half pleading and half shouting. "What do you think would have happened to us if I had jumped into it with you the first chance I got? You really think we would have been what either of us deserves? Would you have ever forgiven me if I had thrown us into a relationship and was as distant with you as I was with Josh?"

"Why are you so afraid of it, Kate?" He demands, sidestepping her questions. "We could have been amazing if you had just been willing to take a chance on me for once!" He doubles down on the rising tension and emotional energy of their argument, leaning forward as she had been.

"Rick, I can't bear the thought of losing you _now,_ and we haven't even been in a relationship yet!" She demands right back, her voice finding full timber. "If I took that chance on a relationship with you and lost it, either because my job got you killed or I just _screwed_ it up," she says with an eye roll, "I... would... _die!_ If I took that chance and we end up married and I lost you, I would _not_ be able to survive that. And _that's_ why I asked you to wait! Why do you think I needed my mother's murder, Castle?"

"Because you're afraid." He answers her, stern but losing his fortitude.

"Afraid of what, Rick?"

"You're afraid of opening yourself up to me."

"I'm afraid of you becoming _everything_ to me, because I knew that's exactly what you'd become if I ever did. And I won't lose everything again like I did when my mother died."

"Then you don't understand how loving someone works, Kate. You're supposed to want to risk it because it would have been worth it."

"Are you really trying to tell me my feelings for you aren't real? Rick, I've been pushing these feelings away for years, so don't try to tell me they're not real."

"They were just never enough, were they?" He asks, and it sends her over the edge, sick of banging her head against the wall he keeps putting up in front of her.

With angry tears coming from her eyes, she shouts. " _Rick!"_

It's then that the door in the corner swings open. "Let's continue!" Vernon says loudly as he closes the door with a thud. Beckett continues to let the tears silently fall down her cheeks while Castle looks away as Vernon approaches them.

A cold serpent is snaking its way around his heart. A rebellion taking place against his long-held feelings for her, his unrequited affections after all this time, knowing how he felt but still never trusting him that much with her heart. She never had the kind of faith in what they could be like he did. Maybe it was blind faith, based on nothing all this time. And whatever feelings she has for him, it's not love. She never said it.

 _Would you even believe her if she did, or push her away because you want to get back at her?_ His heart asks him. He pushes the question away as Vernon steps in between them.

"Two strikes for you, Ricky. Detective, only one for you as we come to the last question." Vernon says with a grin and steps up to her. "Now... Detective Beckett." Vernon says as he's flipping on Beckett's lie detector, "this question will be the most important, the one that will determine if you two truly are worthy of being with each other."

Beckett looks at Vernon only for a second before looking back at her partner, her heart aching. "Go."

"Kate Beckett," Vernon asks loudly and puts a hand on the switch, "thinking about all that's been said here today and all you've heard... do you love this man?"

A pair of tears push their way out. Emotion rising up her throat and floods her system, forcing out a sob. She didn't want to tell him this way. She was hoping more than anything that she could make it out of here and tell him honestly. But now... she has to tell him.

"Do you... love this man?" Vernon asks again.

She smiles through her tears and answers in a clear, honest voice. "Yes."

Castle balls his fists, closes his eyes, and tenses his muscles, readying himself for the shock. But as the seconds go on... he feels nothing. Everything in his chest falls into his stomach when he opens his eyes to find Beckett looking straight at him, her face stained with a fresh set of tear trails and a smile.

"I love you, Rick."

He can feel his heart explode in his chest, his body flooding with weakness.

"I think you are the most... wonderful... childish... kind-hearted... amazing man I've ever met. And if I had known that asking you to wait until I was ready to take that risk was going to push you this far away and make you think that I didn't love you the way I do, I would have been in Burke's office _every_ day." She admits to him in a soft, emotionally congested voice. "Because I did want a relationship I wouldn't trade for anything else with you. I told you before that I was a one and done kind of girl, Rick, I just never told you that I wanted it to be you. I'm sorry about everything, Rick... but yes... I do love you."

 _She loves you,_ his heart says to him. They were there. No matter what he told himself before, this is the truth. She loves him... and wanted them to have everything for them.

"Good..." Vernon says quietly and takes his hand off the switch and moves over to Castle's side.

Rick's heart is pounding wildly in his chest as Kate eyes him, a smile still shining on her face. " _I love you,"_ she silently mouths to him as Vernon turns away from her.

Rick finally tears his eyes away from her, only to eye the two red lights glowing on his side. He has two strikes... she only has one. _He let the woman go..._

"Now... Richard Rodgers," Vernon says as he clicks on Castle's lie detector.

He slows his breathing and closes his eyes, and after a few seconds... he's ready and looks back up to Vernon.

"Thinking about all that's been said here today... and all you've heard..." Castle takes one last steady breath as he looks over to Beckett. Her smile is starting to fade. "Do you love this woman?"

With just a moment of pause, he looks back up to Vernon with his answer. "No."

His voice cuts through her just like the sniper's bullet did that day and in an instant, and as the seconds pass by with the detector not signaling his dishonesty, her heart turns to shattered pieces on the floor of her stomach. Her eyes squeeze shut and her head falls back, her body wracking with a painful sob. She waited too long. The one man she ever felt this in love with, and she missed her chance, she destroyed it.

"If there's one thing I've learned after all this, it's that she's not the woman I thought she was." He continues as calmly as he can. "She's not the woman I loved. No... I don't love her."

Vernon eyes Castle, his lips twinge, his face ticks before looking over to Beckett. She is letting all her pain out, tears flowing from her eyes, her shoulders convulsing with sobs as she chokes back the sound. "You're in pain." Vernon says to her. "This man, he wasn't there for you in your time of need." He looks over to Castle, who's burning his eyes into him. "You stayed true to your love while he didn't. This man... took your heart and broke it... and should be punished."

As Vernon moves around Castle's chair, reaching behind him, everything in her shifts. "No."

"I'll set you free from this pain, Detective." Vernon says and pulls out his gun and puts it at the back of Castle's head.

Castle closes his eyes over the sound of the woman across from him yanking violently on her chains. " _No! Leave him alone!"_

"You've failed the test!" Vernon shouts over her shackles rattling and chains snapping.

" _Riiiick_ _!"_

* * *

 _A/N: I know, I'm hella evil :)_


	24. Chapter 24

_A/N: Last chapter before the epilogue. I have two ideas for my next story. I could either continue with Will of the Wisp (find that in my story list) or write a 4x01 AU I've had in my head for a while where Kate is honest when she says she can't remember her shooting, because I think that would fundementally change her behavior. Let me know in the reviews! Can't thank you enough for sticking with the story as long as you guys have. :)_

* * *

" _Riiiick!"_ Her desperate, straining cry pierces off the walls.

A bang hits her, a pulse in the air shooting and deafening her senses as they become jumbled and unable to process the next few seconds. She falls back into her chair as the scent of dust and gun powder waft into her nose. Her heart is torn into pieces in her chest, and she wants to do anything but open her eyes. She can't prepare herself for the sight of the man she loves dead in front of her. But while her body feels weak and uncontrollable, her stomach in tight retying knots, the first thing she's able to hear is the muffled buzz of shouts.

Her eyes open and she peers through her hot tears and hair hanging in her face to see the rays emanating from flashlights, cutting through the dust in the corner of the room. The shouting is still indistinct as the next few seconds pass by in a haze, her brain unable to take anything in.

She looks over to Vernon who raises his gun to the lights and fires a shot into nowhere. It's not even an instant later that clouds of dark pink dust explode from his chest as muzzle flash lights up from the dust cloud.

" _He's down!"_

"Clear!"

"Cleeeear!" The shouts become more distinct as her mind starts to come back to her.

She can feel her heartbeat in the form of slamming back into one piece in her chest when Ryan becomes clear as one of the outlines in the cloud. He swings his rifle around his back and comes over to her. "Ryan?" She asks.

She still can't think clearly as she looks around the room, seeing Castle start to stir from his position across from her, leaned forward with his eyes squeezed shut. A SWAT member moves behind his chair and kicks Vernon's gun across the room, his rifle pointed to the dead body on the floor while another disappears behind Castle's chair. "Clear, confirmed. He's down."

"You guys, okay?" Ryan asks, looking between them as rips the velcro from Beckett's left arm, hooking her to the lie detector then grabs the shackle.

Once she sees Castle sit up in his chair and look over at Esposito doing the same as Ryan and the SWAT members buzz around them, one coming up to her side opposite Ryan and another helping Castle, everything starts to float back to her.

They're safe.

They're alive.

They made it.

Vernon's dead.

They're going to make it out.

He's going to get to see his family again.

They're going home.

He's not dead.

He's not...

"Beckett, you okay?" Ryan asks her again, cutting into her thoughts.

She visibly shakes her head, the quickly forming cobwebs in her mind and cluttering thoughts break apart as she forces herself to focus on the here and now. "Just get us out of these things."

"Castle, bro, you alright?" Esposito asks as he pulls his Leathermen from his vest and undoes the bolts on Castle's shackle.

And his thoughts are just coming back to him. He was ready, prepared to feel it end, had spent those few seconds accepting it as much as he could. But they're alive, their friends are here, and they're going to get to walk out of here. "How'd you guys find us?"

Ryan smiles over at Castle. "The Bradley's recognized Vernon as their kidnapper a few hours ago." He says and undoes Beckett's first shackle.

Esposito then starts on the bolts hooking Castle to his belt, "Then Alexis dropped a lead about some lead the police found on the survivor's shoes and told us to check basements."

"That led us here. Come on, let's get you guys some help." Ryan says and undoes the last of Beckett's shackles.

After a few minutes, Ryan and Esposito, with the help of the SWAT team members, help pull Castle and Beckett from their chairs. Both of them are weak, in pain, aching, and their bodies are finally starting to feel the brunt of Vernon's torture done to them. With Castle being carried by Esposito and Beckett by Ryan, a SWAT member aiding them both, they all move out of the basement and through a long hallway until they are heading outside, where the sun is gone for the night but the lights from all the SWAT vehicles, police cruisers, and two ambulances parked in the back gives off enough to light the way.

Castle limps his way outside with a thermal blanket draped over his shoulders ahead of Beckett. Once his feet crunch against the gravel of the abandon coal plant, nestled in the thick woods of upstate New York, he draws in as deep a breath as he can manage over the increasingly immense pain assaulting his entire body.

But he's only outside for a second before a door on one of the police cruisers shoots open and Alexis jumps out and takes off at full speed toward her father.

The moment he sees her red-haired ponytail jumping from side to side as she sprints toward him, a tired smile splits across his face. His hands push Esposito and the SWAT member away. Alexis' tears become clear as her feet slam down into the gravel just a few feet away. The teen doesn't stop but instead slams herself into her dad's front and swings her arms around him as tight as she can.

" _Ah!"_ Castle winces, "Careful, careful..." He says and caresses his daughter's back and hugs her.

"Are you okay, Daddy?" Alexis asks against her dad's chest.

"Yeah, I'll be fine, pumpkin." He tells her soothingly as he sees his mother jog up to them, being left behind by Alexis when she darted toward her father. "Alexis," He says and pulls her off of him for a second. "What are you doing here? You're supposed to be at graduation."

Alexis' red, puffy eyes sparkle with love as she frowns up at her father. "Family comes first."

Castle's heart swells and he pulls his daughter back to him, wrapping his arms around her, then opening one up once his mother comes up to the pair. "Oh, Richard."

Beckett, wrapped in her own thermal blanket, watches the family reunite. Castle huddles them with his arms around them, draping them in a thermal blanket of his own, and she can tell by his blissful expression with his head laid down onto his daughter's hair, that there's no possible way he could be happier. Even now, with his shirt still torn, his arms still bloodied and his hair sweatstained, his body looking weak, he's happy to be back with his family.

It's taking the sight in that reminds her heart of what they just overcome... and it starts to break. She has no place in his life anymore. He said it himself, he doesn't love her anymore. But she puts on as brave a face as she can as she limps her painful body over to the waiting medics.

* * *

It's another thirty minutes after they're rescued when Castle is sitting on the floor of the back of an open ambulance with Alexis behind him, her arms draped over her dad's shoulders and her head laid down on his shoulder, unable to un-cling herself from him while his mother stands next to him outside the ambulance.

"Well, Mr. Castle," the paramedic starts as he finishes wrapping the last of his bandages, "you have a few cuts, a few bruises, you might have a cracked rib from that belt he had on you, a few electrical burns, but other than that, nothing too serious. A few painkillers and you should be fine."

He's about to ask, has his mouth open and the words in his mouth, but his mother beats him to it. "What about Katherine?"

Castle looks between his mother and the paramedic, and he smiles. "Detective Beckett? She should be fine. Her electrical burns are a bit worse, and I'm sure her doctor wants to see her as soon as possible to make sure the shocks didn't open up any wounds or anything, but she should be fine with some prescriptions and some time off her feet."

"Thank you, doctor." Castle says just before the paramedic smiles, nods, and goes off away from them.

Castle puts a hand on his daughter's forearm going across his chest and starts making loving chit-chat with his mother and daughter, enjoying the feeling of home they give him. And after a minute, his eyes finally find her, sitting in the back of the ambulance on the other side of the lot. Her tight-fitting light grey top looks worn, her slacks are dirtied and her hair is tied back into a low hanging ponytail. The dried blood staining her face all day is gone and her face is scrubbed of emotion as she talks to Ryan and Esposito.

He never planned for this, what to say if they actually, by some miracle, made it out. Everything they said to each other, every argument had and battle fought between them... he knows now that they could never be the same as before after this.

And across the way, Beckett wraps herself in the thermal blanket as Ryan shakes his head at her with his arms crossed. "So, you guys really went undercover as fiance?"

"In my defense, most of it was Castle's idea."

"And the vodka you charged the NYPD for? Was that Castle's idea too?" Esposito smirks.

Beckett's expression falls. "I charged the _precinct_ for that?!"

"Mmhmm," Ryan smirks with his partner. "And we uh... also heard about the... the bathroom?"

Beckett's annoyance floods into her system when she sees Esposito's eyes narrow, but she stops them in their tracks with an eye roll. "Okay, first off, if you think you're getting details from me, you're going to have to put me back in that chair to get them, and second, if you think you're getting them from Castle, he was too drunk to remember anything."

"Well, details or not," Ryan starts, sounding serious, "we're just glad we got to you guys in time."

"So, what happened in there?" Espo asks.

It's then that she goes to answer, but her eyes find him and her heart sinks. He's being loved by his family, his daughter hanging on him and his mother smiling over to him as they talk. He has a smile on his face. It's felt like weeks since she's seen him smile like that. It feels so good to see him smile. "Vernon just... asked us some questions and shocked us a few times. That's all."

"Detective Beckett?" A familiar, commanding voice calls to her from behind Ryan. Both Ryan and Esposito step away from her and see Captain Gates standing a few feet away with her arms crossed and a cold scowl on her face. "A word?"

* * *

His mother puts a hand on his shoulder as his eyes find her again when she stands up for the first time since the paramedics started looking her over to talk to Gates.

"Well, Richard, we're just glad you're okay."

"Is there uh..." Alexis starts and lifts her head off his shoulder, "anything you want to tell us?"

Castle looks over to his daughter, who's sending him a knowing look, then over to his mother who is smiling at him with a raised brow, then moves her eyes off to the side, motioning toward Beckett. "I-I uh... missed you guys? What exactly are you looking for?"

"Captain Gates told us that you and Beckett were in a bathroom and-"

"Wha-hey, uh..." he stammers to stop her. "I don't even remember that, okay? And as far as Beckett and I are concerned, we..." he lets the words fall when he sees her slowly walking up to him with her arms crossed and the thermal blanket still wrapped around her shoulders, her eyes down to her feet.

Alexis seems to notice her approaching and gives her father one last hug. "We'll give you a minute, Daddy." She tells him once Beckett stops a few feet away from them.

"Thank you, pumpkin." He tells her and smiles as she climbs out from behind him. "Go practice that speech, I still want to hear it, okay?"

"Okay, Daddy." She says and goes with her grandmother off to the police cruisers.

Beckett follows them with her eyes before looking back at him. "I'm sorry you didn't get to see her graduate, Castle."

"She's not too upset about it. I'm just glad I got to see her again."

"Yeah, me too." She tries pathetically, feeling the awkwardness and cowardice stop her from just bringing it up and out into the open. "So, how're you feeling?"

"Starving. I can't remember the last time I ate something." She smiles quickly and nods, craning her neck in front of her. "What about you? Vernon put you through the wringer in there."

"I'll be fine." She smiles again. "I'll have a few weeks to recover anyway."

"Gates give you some time off?" He asks.

"Yep," she nods and purses her lips, "and she took my badge while she was at it too." Castle lifts his head to look at her, his eyes widening a bit and she clarifies. "Three weeks suspension."

"For what? None of this was your fault." He argues.

"Not telling anyone where I was headed, not notifying anyone about going undercover, going in without backup, drinking on the job, accidentally charging the precinct for a twenty-two dollar bottle of vodka, and getting caught being intimate with an unpaid consultant of the NYPD while on duty."

"Why is it that everyone gets to know the details of that but me?" He asks to no one.

Kate chuckles halfheartedly. "Maybe it will come back to you someday."

Rick nods and lets his eyes drift from her for a moment, but they quickly cast a chance glance in her direction. Before he just decides to tell her and moves to achingly stand up. "Listen..." he starts and slowly comes to his feet. "About... what happened in there..."

She nods and tightens her arms across her chest. "It's not exactly something you can come back from, huh?"

He sighs smally and nods, "Yeah."

"Look, Rick," She starts and looks up at him with shining eyes, "I heard what you said in there and I just want you to know that I'll wait."

"You'll-you'll wait?"

"I'll wait as long as it takes and do whatever you want, because I-I..." she deflates and looks back up at him and his pinches brow, looking at her with worried anxiousness, "I still love you. That hasn't changed just because you said you don't love me anymore."

"Beckett, about that, there's some-"

"I'm sorry that I made you wait this long and that I was so scared to take a chance on us, but you have no idea how hard it's been admitting to myself the truth about us, Rick."

"Kate, if you'll just-"

"No, Rick, let me finish." She pleads and holds her hand out. Rick's expression deadpans as he bites down on his lip and looks off into space. "I'm sorry that everything I said made you not love me anymore and made you think I'm not the woman you fell for, but I'll do whatever it takes to change that because I still love you more than-"

With one quick motion, his hand reaches up, cups her chin and pulls her lips to him.

And the instant her lips are pulled against his, her body feels lifted, her heart explodes in her chest, her lungs fill with warm early summer air, and her eyes close while her brow shoots up in surprise. When the feeling of his soft lips finally reaches her brain, she begins to sink back into him, falling into his lips with each passing second. His hand finds her hip and his fingers drift off her chin as he holds her lips to his in a long kiss that radiants with feelings she was convinced he didn't have anymore.

He finally lets her go, but she falls into him, her lips chasing after his to get them back. He lets out a small sigh and after a few seconds, her eyes flutter open to see his eyes shining softly over to her and his smile starting to peak at the edges of his lips.

He tugs at her hip and draws in a breath, "If you're going to be the incessant rambler in this relationship, it might cause some tension."

Her eyes dance around his face for a second before her head shakes a few times and she blinks. "B-But I... I thought that-"

"Chapter nineteen of Storm Season." He says knowingly.

"Yeah, I remember."

"And do you remember how chapter nineteen _ended?"_

"Yeah," she shrugs and looks away from him, not fighting him when he tugs at her hip again, "Derrick Storm diffuses the bomb by tricking the..." her words fall as they float into her mind. And once they do, she looks back up at him, her eyes wide and her heart bursting. "You..."

He just smirks and makes his eyes shine brightly.

"You tricked the lie detector?" She asks him, putting a hand on his bare chest.

"Mmhmm," he hums.

"So you really do love me?" She asks, her eyes starting to burn with welcomed tears as a smile starts to split her face in two and she starts to lean into him.

His other hand finds the small of her back as he looks deeply into her eyes. "I never stopped, Kate."

She laughs an emotional breath and lets a smile engulf her features and puts a hand on his cheek, pulling herself up to kiss him. But something stops her just before their lips touch, a thought occurring to her at the last second. "Wait..."

She starts to fall back down to the balls of her feet as the thought makes her smile fade.

"If you were tricking the lie detector, then that means that you were..." She looks up to him, almost hoping that he'd tell her it wasn't true, but his unwavering determined look tells her that it's true. "You were gonna..."

His eyes fall away from her as he tugs at her again. "I had two strikes, Kate." He tells her in a soft voice, thick with insecurity. "You only had one. And besides, you saw him in there. You saw how long he shocked me for, he had it out for me, not you. The only way to make sure that you walked out of there was for me to fail the test and not you."

"You were going to sacrifice yourself." She says, a tear falling off her lashes.

"I told you before, Kate," he starts and looks her in the eye, "I don't care how many bullets I have to jump in front of to keep you safe and I don't care if you hate me for it... so long as you're alive at the end of the day to do it."

"Ri-ick," she struggles, putting her arm around his shoulders and pulling herself to him, putting a hand on his cheek and brushing her thumb across his lips, "before I kiss you, I need you to promise me something."

"What?" He asks as his hands push her against him.

"The next time you do something that you think might take your life," she says and moves her hand to his hair, "you take me with you." He smiles a loving smile and brushing her stray hair over her shoulder as he engulfs her in his arms. "I love you, Rick."

"I love you too, Kate."


	25. Epilogue

_A/N: Majority of the votes went to the 4x01 AU, so that's what I'll be doing. Title will be Can't Go Home Again, so be on the look out! Any ideas as to what it will be about? :o_

* * *

She doesn't want to get out of bed.

It's a lazy Friday morning, she has the day off, and she hasn't been sleeping much with having to make sure she's the least hectic person in their lives. With everything that's been going on, everyone expects her to be the most stressed out. But the truth is, both of them are pretty relaxed. She wanted to just spend the morning in bed, but when she stretches across the expanse of the bed, his side is empty. Spending a lazy morning in bed is depressing when she doesn't have him.

"I swear," She mutters to herself as she tosses the sheets off herself, "is it too much to ask that you sleep in for once?"

She's been thinking back a lot lately. She can't remember what her life was like before them. It seems so surreal to think that she actually lived through the life she did when she thinks about her life now. She remembers how she felt, how she justified herself holding back from having all this. But that day, it seems so long ago now, is when she stopped hiding, stopped being afraid, latched onto something she was terrified would become her all, and made it her all.

She drags herself out of their bedroom in her baggy, comfortable pajamas, scratching her unkempt hair and stops at the threshold of his office. Not dressed yet, she sees him just sitting down to their couch with the newspaper. Her eyes dance over him as she becomes flustered quicker than she had planned for. She sees him click on the TV on the wall and sit back, putting his feet up as he relaxes. Rubbing the band of her ring with her thumb, a tick she picked up a few days after putting it on, she roves her eyes over his calm smile... and his cup of coffee.

She sashays her way over to him, going along the edge of the room and coming up behind him. His head tilts back a bit as her hands find his shoulders, her palms sliding down his chest and moving around his neck. She leans down to him and brushes the hair above his ear with her nails and kisses just below his earlobe.

"Mmm..." He moans in a high pitch.

Her hand caresses his chest in a wanting motion as her lips tingle against the warm skin of his neck... while her other hand sneaks down to the arm of the couch.

"Good morning, babe." She moans against his jaw and plants another soft kiss to him and tries to grab for his cup.

But her fingertips just feel the fabric of the couch, and blindly, she searches for it for a second.

She lifts her lips off of him to look down and she finds him holding his coffee cup on the opposite side of him. She looks down to him just as he plants a loving good morning kiss on her jaw. "Nice try."

Kate deflates and lays her arms limply down his chest and her head down on his shoulder for a second, groaning in defeat. "You know, I've heard that _some_ husbands get their wives their morning coffee."

"That may be true, Kate, but I've never heard of the marriages where the wife _steals_ the husbands coffee instead."

Groaning again, she lifts her head off his shoulder and kisses his hair for real, hugging him and spins around and moves into their living room.

Sometimes, when she takes the time to actually think about it, this is the most home she's felt since she was a kid. It started as an offhanded, albeit annoyed comment about having to go back to her apartment before work to get something that wasn't here at the loft, and ended with him just saying she should just move in already. They moved what little remained in her apartment here that weekend. Her things now co-mingle with his, here at the loft.

Their home.

She's loved being engaged, but she really can't wait to be married. She's more looking forward to being married than she is to getting married. Everyone else in the family seems to be freaking out that she isn't freaking out about the wedding. It's going to be an amazing day, but she wants it to be over with. She wants to be married to him already. She has her vows all memorized, every inflection, every tone of every word, every breath and every pause well rehearsed, to say the words she's going to say to vow the rest of her life spent with him, and how much she loves him.

With her own cup of coffee, her eyes linger on the framed picture of their first Memorial Day together up at the Hampton's, his smiling lips pressed against her cheek, hugging her lovingly from behind and her face lit up with a giddy smile. After a minute or two, she is finally making her way back into the office and sits down next to him.

"What are you watching?" She asks and sits down in his side and lifts her mug to her lips.

His hand lifts the remote and turns up the volume. "They're talking about him."

" _Craig Vernon, a violent serial killer that eluded police capture... for over a decade. Dubbed the Honeymoon Killer, for his targeting of engaged couples, Craig Vernon's case is finally put to rest today, as a memorial is put up for the nine lives lost in this horrific string of murders. The unveiling is set to take place this morning, and is to..."_

Kate lets it turn to noise as she takes another sip of her coffee. "Did you plan on going?" She asks him.

Rick looks over to her with a lift in his brow. "Did you? I mean, they called you for a comment last night, didn't they?"

"Mmhmm," She hums and lays her head down on his shoulder as she scoots herself closer into his side. "I kind of just wanted to spend the day in, today. I'm feeling kind of lazy."

"Well, you do have the day off, you're entitled to feel lazy, Sweetie."

She chuckles under her breath and rubs her thumb against her engagement ring. She's loved being engaged, and his proposal was perfect. Coming home from a hectic day at the precinct, she stepped out of her heels as she neared the couch in the living room, then opened the door to his office and found a copy of Storm Season standing up on his desk with a rose and two candles lit next to it. The book she had signed by him all those years ago and lost when her apartment blew up, he replaced. And as she cracked the book open, the words " _To Kate, count to five and turn around"_ written out on the first page.

With a pounding heart, she turned around and saw him approaching her in a pressed suit just before he knelt down and asked her the question that is leading her to the rest of her life.

She loves thinking about that night... and it gives her an idea. "You know," She says suddenly and puts her coffee down on the coffee table in front of her and starts to slither her way onto his lap, "since I have the day off, why don't we..." she says and puts her arms around his shoulders, sitting sideways on his legs, "go and celebrate our engagement."

His brow skyrockets and his eyes dance. His lips quickly open up to greet hers in a slow, sensual kiss as his hands rove her back and wrap around her side. "Mmm," he moans as she releases him with a slow, wet pluck, "couple problems."

"What?" She asks with a smile as she pets his hair.

"One, we're getting married in two days. And two... we celebrated our engagement last night."

Kate shrugs her shoulders and looks away from him. "I know, but come on, Rick." She says as he takes her left hand and pinches her engagement ring. "I mean, when our kids ask us about our engagement," her words make his heart stop and his eyes widen, finding hers with a sparkle, "what are we going to tell them? That we spent the entire time worrying about... place settings and centerpieces?

"D-did..." he stammers as he looks up at her with an all too excited twinkle in his eye. "Did you say kids?"

"Yes," she says matter-of-factly. "Wait, haven't we had this talk already?"

He's quick to shake his head, "No."

"Well," she says and takes a pause, "I want kids."

His small grin quickly turns into a bright, face-splitting smile. "You really want kids?"

"Yes," She chuckles. "I swear we've had this talk before."

"No," He chuckles back and shakes his head, "we have _not_ had this talk before because I've had a speech prepared in my head for the past year and a half about... hearing 'I love you, Mommy' for the first time and... something about stepping on toys and me having to make funny noises to censor Mommy so the kids don't hear her curse."

"What?" She asks with a chuckle and pets his hair again.

"Well, I thought you'd need convincing but..." He says and snakes his arms tighter around her, "I like this too."

"Yeah, me too." She smiles and pulls his lips to her again, kissing him lovingly. After another long kiss, she brushes her nose against his and tickles his lips with her thumb. Then his eyes move back to the TV and his features harden. "What is it?"

His hand grabs for the remote and turns the volume back up on the news.

" _This news is also coming in the wake of the final sentencing for former Senator William Bracken, who was found guilty on all charges. William Bracken, former Senator of the state of New York, was under investigation and was indicted by Congress after the FEC reported suspicious activity in Bracken's campaign funds in the spring of last year. This uncovered one of the largest conspiracies ever to rock the United States, and led to historic legislation requiring holder's of political office to declare all funds and to..."_

Rick looks up to his soon-to-be wife, the woman whom he's going to promise his life to and who's going to promise her life to him, stare at the TV with the same small, content smile she looked away from him with.

"Kate..." he calls to her seriously.

She looks at him, tearing her eyes away from the screen to look at him.

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah, why?" She pinches her brow.

"You're not upset?" He asks her, caressing her back and her thigh to let her know that he's here to care for her as the TV shows them his face.

She chuckles again, "Why on Earth would I be upset, babe?"

"Kate, in two days, we're taking vows to spend the rest of our lives together. I don't want you to go into it with any resentment toward me."

"Rick," she breathes and gently puts a loving hand on his cheek, "I'm glad he's in jail. It doesn't matter to me that I'm not the one who put him there. _You..._ matter to me." She tells him, petting his cheek with her thumb, gazing into his sparkling blue eyes. "More than anything else. And when I take my vow on Sunday, I'll be doing it because you're the love of my life and without a single shred of doubt or regret... okay?"

"Okay," he smiles and accepts her smiling lips in another loving kiss.

" _His crimes linking back to the murder of for Captain of the NYPD Roy Montgomery and lawyer Johanna Beckett, mother of Detective Kate Beckett."_ The TV narrates in the background as they kiss in a slow, passionate pace. " _Detective Kate Beckett and her fiance, Richard Castle, could not be reached for comment."_

His lips pull off hers for a second. "I thought they called you for a comment last night."

"They did."

"Well, what'd you say?"

"We're getting married, leave us alone." He raises his brow and smirks. "Well, they asked what I had to say and _that's_ what I had to say."

"In the spirit of that," He says and moves his arms underneath her legs and plants his feet on the ground, "I think we should practice."

"For- _ah!"_ She squeals as her fiance lifts her up in his arms and stands up, making her giggle happily. "For what, carrying me over the threshold?"

He smiles. "No, having kids."

 **END**


End file.
